Hidden Joule

Start-up biotech company Zymetis has engineered a bacteria to more efficiently produce the building blocks of ethanol from cellulose. The company has conducted a trial which found the organism was capable of processing one tonne of plant fibre into sugars that can be used to produce ethanol.

The organism under development is Saccharophagus Degradans
Discovered in marsh land in Chesapeake Bay, the microbe is a proteobacteria that is the only organism in the newly created Saccharophagus genus.

The (biological) production of ethanol from cellulose is a difficult, multistage process involving the pretreatment of the feedstock, breaking it down into sugars, seperating the sugars then fermenting them into ethanol.

This microbe, with a little help from engineers) combines the first two steps of production. It is capable of breaking down whole plant matter and converting the available cellulose into sugars. These sugars can then be fermented using various yeasts into ethanol.

The pretreatment of plant matter is a very expensive step in the process. If this bacteria can be developed into a viable industrial process, we will see a big increase in the efficiency and a significant drop in the price of ethanol production.