A World Bathed in the Glow of Bacterial Light

Scientists are becoming more clever at manipulating microbes to perform basic tasks. In this story, bacteria were taught to glow in synchrony, with the aim of creating microbial sensors to detect toxic gases. Similar technologies will soon be used to tweak microbes into producing valuable chemicals and fuels, and much more.

UCSD scientists have trained E. Coli bacteria to glow in synchrony, like a light chorus. The synchrony arises when colonies of bacteria on microfluidic chips communicate via gas channels. More:

Their achievement, detailed in this week’s advance online issue of the journal Nature, involved attaching a fluorescent protein to the biological clocks of the bacteria, synchronizing the clocks of the thousands of bacteria within a colony, then synchronizing thousands of the blinking bacterial colonies to glow on and off in unison.

...Using the same method to create the flashing signs, the researchers engineered a simple bacterial sensor capable of detecting low levels of arsenic. In this biological sensor, decreases in the frequency of the oscillations of the cells’ blinking pattern indicate the presence and amount of the arsenic poison.

Because bacteria are sensitive to many kinds of environmental pollutants and organisms, the scientists believe this approach could be also used to design low cost bacterial biosensors capable of detecting an array of heavy metal pollutants and disease-causing organisms. And because the senor is composed of living organisms, it can respond to changes in the presence or amount of the toxins over time unlike many chemical sensors.

...Hasty said he believes that within five years, a small hand-held sensor could be developed that would take readings of the oscillations from the bacteria on disposable microfluidic chips to determine the presence and concentrations of various toxic substances and disease-causing organisms in the field. _UCSD

"This development illustrates how basic, quantitative knowledge of cellular circuitry can be applied to the new discipline of synthetic biology," said James Anderson at the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences, in a university statement.

The new chips can be used for the production of biochemicals, tissue engineering, and biosensors that continually monitor the environment, rather than offer a one-off test that must be replaced every time new readings are needed. Besides the obvious practical uses, the sensors offer good aesthetics: The new "biopixels" come in beautiful shades of blue. _FastCoexist

Imagine if all the microbes in the world were to glow in the dark. Should that happen, humans might begin to comprehend the real inhabitants of Earth, in terms of number and mass. At that point, these slightly advanced apes might begin to understand the promise of bio-technologies.

BIO’s World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing

The BIO World Congress on Industrial Biotech and Bioprocessing happened in Washington DC, and BiofuelsDigest filed a report. The most interesting item was news about biorefineries.

... the cross-over from chemicals to fuels and back again is – that is to say, the integrated biorefinery model — is another trend at BIO.

ZeaChem is continuing to finish out a suite of 2-carbon products including ethyl acetate, acetic acid and ethanol. LS9 is continuing down a two-pronged strategy of diesel fuels and surfactants that are the chief components in detergents. Amyris last week announced a whole slew of partnerships to exploit its ability to make low-cost fanesene for the cosmetic and other industries. Solazyme is making renewable fuels for the US Navy (among others) as well as renewable oils for the food and fragrances industries. _BiofuelsDigest

Speaking of ZeaChem, they appear to be on the verge of commercial scale production of cellulosic ethanol PLUS a whole raft of co-products, using the biorefinery model:

ZeaChem’s approach can deliver a range of chemicals and fuels within the carbon chain product groups. Imbler says that the company has started work on its C3 organism (which would produce lactic acid, rather than the acetic acid produced by its current C2 organism). The C3 product platform would include propionic acid, propanol and propylene. Moving on to C4 could produce butanol.

Through the successful production of ethanol, we’ve completed ZeaChem’s C2 carbon chain suite of products, which includes acetic acid, ethyl acetate, and ethanol. The next step is to integrate these known processes to achieve the ultimate target of commercial production of economical and sustainable biofuels and bio-based chemicals.

—Jim Imbler

ZeaChem Carbon Chain Product Groups
C2 Chain	C3 Chain	C4 Chain	C6 Chain
Acetic Acid Ethyl Acetate Ethanol Ethylene Ethylene Glycol	Lactic Acid Propylene Glycol Acrylic Acid & Esters Propionic Acid Propylene Methacrylic Acid & Esters Diluent	Butanol	Hexanol Hexene

Feedstock. Although the ZeaChem process is feedstock agnostic, it is initially concentrating on its farmed hybrid poplar trees. ZeaChem’s analysis has shown the use of short rotation hybrid poplars offers the lowest cost per BDT/acre/year. These short-rotation hybrids can be harvested as often as three years, and require replanting only once every five harvests.

_GCC

Zeachem's microbe produces acetic acid which is then chemically transformed to ethanol -- or a number of co-product high value chemicals for other industries.

An entire industry based on biorefineries is being born. Download the World Economic Forum's PDF report for more information.

Biorefineries: Local and Regional Bioenergy Expands

Japan"s Mitsui and Denmark's Inbicon are combining expertise to build a number of biorefineries across Southeast Asia.

The agreement grants Mitsui the right to build a number of biomass refineries in Southeast Asia using Inbicon’s technology. Mitsui intends to apply the technology in the palm oil industry, where wastes from palm oil production can be converted into ethanol, solid biofuel for energy production, and animal feed. The agreement marks the first sale of licensing for Inbicon.

With the agreement, we have taken an important step towards the establishing of a plant engineering business for the production of second-generation ethanol in Southeast Asia. We have already committed considerable resources to the development of this new business. Furthermore, we are expecting to expand the cooperation with Inbicon into other markets.


—Shunichi Yamashita, Director of Mitsui

Inbicon A/S, a subsidiary of DONG Energy A/S, develops technology for conversion and refining of soft ligno-cellulosic biomass into fuel, feed, and green chemistry products. The company has operated a pilot plant since 2003, and late last year opened its first Inbicon Biomass Refinery in Kalundborg, Denmark to demonstrate its technology. The plant converts wheat straw into fuel ethanol, animal feed, and lignin pellets for energy production. (Earlier post.)

Inbicon uses a three-stage pretreatment process: mechanical, hydrothermal, and enzymatic treatment of biomass. The pre-treatment yields a much higher concentration of sugar in the liquid going to fermentation, according to the company, and the resulting beer or alcohol concentration is at least double the normal percentage in cellulosic ethanol processing. In other words, each batch has a less water and more ethanol, further increasing yield and efficiency.

The Inbicon plant uses enzymes from Novozymes and from Genencor (Danisco) for its pre-treatment. _GCC

This large scale distributed project is only a hint of what is to come from bioenergy.   Notice the involvement of Mitsui, Inbicon, Novozymes, and Genencor -- along with a number of smaller contractors.

It is vital to understand the combined nature of Mitsui's approach to biofuels.  First they refine the oils from palm oil into diesel, then they refine the biomass waste efficiently into ethanol.  The resulting ethanol can be used in the oils-to-biodiesel process, or for any other purpose ethanol is used.

Southeast Asia is becoming a hotbed of biofuels and bioenergy -- no doubt at least partially because of the massive expansion of oilseed plantations and projects there.  Environmentalists who would otherwise attempt to stop such projects are at something of a disadvantage in Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, etc.

There are ways to grow massive quantities of biomass and oilseeds.  Some of those ways are sustainable and environmentally responsible.  But environmentalists do not care -- they simply want to stop new energy production in order to drive energy starvation and the great dieoff.org.   If you can stop new energy via legislation, regulation, or tort, you can make peak energy and peak oil a self-fulfilling prophecy.

$50 Billion Market for Benzene, Toluene, Xylene

Using Huber’s rapid new catalytic pyrolysis technology, Anellotech has already demonstrated commercially relevant production not only of gasoline and biofuel precursors but of benzene, toluene and xylene ... Global markets for these chemicals are in excess of $50 billion at present.

Anything you can make from crude oil, in the next 10 to 20 years we can make from biomass. One of the beauties of biofuel is that the products are indistinguishable from those derived from petroleum oil today. People are going to pull up to the gas station and pump fuel produced with this clean, green technology in their cars without necessarily being aware of it. All the changes will be made on the front end, at the biorefinery. Rather than refining crude oil we’re going to be refining renewable biomass.
—George Huber _GCC

Biomass can be made to grow with very little encouragement. Using techniques such as George Huber's rapid catalytic pyrolysis, biomass can be converted into fuels, fuel precursors, and precursors for the production of plastics, high value chemicals, and other high value feedstocks.

Industrialists must seek out petroleum oil wherever they can find it. But biomass can be grown across most of Earth's surface -- on both ocean and land. The energy density of biomass is lower than for coal, petroleum, gas, oil shales, oil sands, and heavy oils. But the energy contained within biomass can be made more dense, with various ingenious methods already well-known to engineers, industrialists, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists. And biomass can be regrown at least once every year.

BTL + FT = Synthetic Jet Fuel and Diesel

Rentech is taking its Fischer-Tropsch process and combining it with the Biomass-to-Liquid process of ClearFuels Technology Inc. to accelerate the production of synthetic jet fuel and diesel fuel from biomass. This partnership will begin at up to 12 US-based projects and expand outward from there.

ClearFuels has begun project development of multiple commercial scale biomass-to-energy projects in the Southeastern US, Hawaii and internationally that will use the integrated ClearFuels-Rentech design and will be co-located at sugar mills and wood processing facilities. The wood waste projects alone are estimated to have an aggregate annual capacity of more than 100 million gallons of renewable synthetic fuels and 30 MW of renewable power.

To facilitate the development process, ClearFuels plans first to install a demonstration-scale biomass gasifier at Rentech’s Product Demonstration Unit (PDU) in Commerce City, Colorado to produce syngas from bagasse, virgin wood waste and other cellulosic feedstocks. The gasifier will be integrated with Rentech’s Fischer-Tropsch Process and UOP’s upgrading technology to produce high-quality renewable drop-in synthetic jet and diesel fuels at demonstration scale. _GCC

In other bioenergy news, Chemrec is planning a biorefinery plant in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden, to convert black liquor to synthetic fuels. Converting the pulp/paper waste product (black liquor) to a useful fuel is becoming more popular in the paper industry worldwide. It is but one example of the increasing conversion of waste and pollutants into useful products and fuels.

Biomass to Energy Two Different Ways

Cellulosic biomass to ethanol, Ecostrat Biorefinery project in Missouri:
Jordon Solomon of Ecostrat explains how the critically important supply of biomass for the Marshall, Missouri biorefinery will be obtained initially and then maintained for the long haul.

The intake of biomass for ethanol production is expected to be 450,000 tons yearly. The annual intake for power production is expected to be 200,000 tons.

"The initial woody biomass needs to come from quite far away. There just isn't 650,000 tons within 100 miles of your town available sustainably," said Solomon.

About 10 percent of the biomass taken in by the facility will be waste, said Solomon, and he mentioned Galveston, Texas, where "almost half a million tons of hurricane debris (is) sitting there, rotting, emitting its carbon into the atmosphere, and shouldn't that be coming here and being made into ethanol?"

The remaining 90 percent of biomass will be "more traditional biomass," he said.

"When you're putting up a large-scale production like this, the most important element is reliable biofuel supply."

During the first three years of the complex's operation, woody biomass provided by Ecostrat will be used. Between years four and six, the refinery will transition to an energy crop. After seven years, the transition will have been completed, and the complex will operate only on the energy crop.

The energy crop Ecostrat has identified is called Miscanthus giganteus, a perennial sterile grass that can grow to more than 13 feet tall. It grows in the spring and will return for 10 or more years after rhizomes are planted. It requires no fertilizer besides leftover leaves, requires no pesticides and can be grown on less-than-fertile land that Solomon called "class three land," meaning it has high clay or sand content. _Bioenergy

If a bioenergy plant cannot get its biomass feedstock, it may as well be a lump of iron sitting in the rain for all the good it will do. The Ecostrat cellulosic ethanol plant intends to start at near full capacity, without having built up its local biomass supply in advance. There is some risk involved in that approach. Better would be a scaled up, modular approach to match growing local supplies of feedstock that are locked in. Whether miscanthus, switchgrass, poplar, or willow, the underlying cellulose source simply has to be available.
The second bioamass-to-energy approach is gasification. In particular, we will look at plasma gasification (at up to 20,000 degrees F). The high temperatures achievable via plasma gasification provide an ultra-clean syngas product.

In plasma gasification, biomass is fed into a closed chamber and superheated to temperatures of up to 20,000 degrees fahrenheit. The intense heat transforms biomass into syngas, which is then reformulated using into ethanol and green diesel, hydrogen, methanol or methane. A secondary process can convert the base materials into other industrial chemicals.

S4 Energy Solutions’ initial focus will be to process medical and other segregated commercial and industrial waste streams. The company’s future commercialization plans may also include the processing of municipal solid waste once the technology has been demonstrated to be economical and scalable for such use. The S4 technology is designed with unique advances in plasma technology that increase the lifespan of high-cost elements such as the refractories.

Tests of the unit have shown that there is no creation of dangerous dioxins, and the process produces hydrogen and carbon monoxide in a 1:1 ratio, while recovering 50-70 percent of the BTUs in the waste. _BiofuelsDigest

Part of the syngas is used to power gas turbines for electricity, to power the plasma itself. Excess electricity is sold to the utility. Excess syngas not used for electricity production can be used for multiple purposes including liquid fuels production and high value chemicals production.

Heat can be recovered from the process and used to power a steam cycle turbine for additional electricity, and to provide process heat -- or to produce environmental heat for commercial or residential use.

Municipal waste is a good feedstock for such a process, since the final product is purified so thoroughly by the 20,000 degree F temperatures. But should many of these plants be built, there will not be enough municipal waste to power them all, and they will need to contract with biomass suppliers in the agricultural and forestry sectors.

Biomass has the advantage of containing built-in solar energy storage. But it is not nearly as energy-dense as fossil fuels. Humans need to use a bit of ingenuity to find efficient ways of densifying biomass. Pyrolysis, gasification, torrefaction, etc. accomplish densification as an intermediate step.

Prior to those processes one needs to harvest, collect, dry, and often compress the biomass close to the source, before moving to intermediate processing above. As long as the biomass is produced locally and regionally for local and regional processing, transportation costs are kept to a minimum.

Producers of bioenergy need to be planting now, in order to have ample supplies of biomass available in a few years when they are ready to produce power and fuels.

Biorefinery: Spend $30,000, Save $500,000 Yearly

Yes, if your operation runs several high mileage automobiles every day, this $30,000 biorefinery by Allard Research can churn out enough ethanol and biodiesel to save your operation $500,000 a year in fuel costs.

Texas-based Allard Research and Development is now selling the “world’s first mini-refinery” for consumer use that produces both ethanol and biodiesel.

....it can crank out up to 120 gallons per day of ethanol and 450 gallons per day of biodiesel:

Consisting of two pieces of equipment — an ethanol boiler and the mini-refinery — the whole system can fit into an area of less than 30 square feet with 8 feet of clearance and is completely automated. _Domestic Fuel

You will need to find a source of vegetable oil--waste oil from restaurants is a good choice--and feedstock for fermenting ethanol. The ethanol boiler will distill ethanol fuel from fermented brew. The entire process is computer controlled and automated and can produce both ethanol and biodiesel simultaneously.

Regular readers of AFE will understand that the writers at this blog prefer cellulosic fuels or algal fuels to fuels from crops such as maize or soy. Of course, if the economics works out for your operation you may consider giving such a unit a go. Eventually small scale gasifiers plus small F-T units will allow ranches, farms, and other small fleet operators to make fuel from cellulosic biomass, or small scale bioreactors will allow direct production of fuels from biomass and CO2 using either biological systems of microbes or biomimetic systems of biologically derived or biomimetic enzyme systems outside of an organism.

Local and Regional Scale Biofuels Refineries

Al Fin has always promoted bioenergy on the local and regional scales. Biomass and biofuels crops are ideal for meeting the economic and energy needs of localities and regions. New technology from Oxford Catalysts seems ideal for the use of local bioenergy refineries:

With approximately one tonne of biomass required to produce one barrel of liquid fuel, the transportation of biomass to a large-scale, centralized plant poses a challenge to the economics of biomass-to-liquids production. One approach being taken to address this is the development of small-scale Fischer-Tropsch reactors to convert the waste on a distributed basis locally rather than at large collection centers.

Microchannel reactors—compact reactors featuring channels with diameters in the millimeter range—are potentially the best candidates for this job. They enable more efficient and precise temperature control, and the small diameter channels dissipate heat more quickly than conventional reactors with larger channel diameters in the 20-30 mm (i.e. inch) range so more active catalysts can be used. As a result, microchannel reactors can exhibit conversion efficiencies in the range of 70% per pass.

Microchannel reactors are designed for economical production on a small scale. A single microchannel reactor block might produce up to 50 barrels (bbls) of liquid fuel/day. Conventional FT plants, in contrast, are designed to work at minimum capacities of 2,000 bbls/day, and function well and economically at capacities of 30,000 bbls/day or higher. They exhibit conversion efficiencies in the range of 50% or less per pass. _GCC

Eventually, the infrastructure for large scale biomass to biofuels conversion will be built to meet national and international needs. But for the next few decades, the small-biorefinery niche will present huge opportunities for local investors, farmers, foresters, and entrepreneurs. A bioenergy industry grown from the bottom up is the type of empowerment that should suit rural communities in both the developed world and the third world.