What is the relationship between glucose and hydrocarbons? A recent study by the University of Buffalo in New York and the University of California managed to obtain olefins (hydrocarbons) from a genetic modification of Escherichia coli (a bacteria addicted to sugar).
The north pursued by people, institutions, and companies such as IC Corporation, committed to the environment is the development of sustainable biofuels and this new finding by American researchers points to a possible long-term solution, if it is possible to optimize its process and become cost effective to use.
Alkenes – or formerly called olefins – are unsaturated hydrocarbons with a carbon-carbon double bond in their molecule. These are not present in crude oil but are produced in certain refining operations to produce gasoline. Its versatility extends to use in industrial lubricants and in the manufacture of plastics as well.
What is truly innovative in the research published in the journal Nature Chemistry in an article entitled A dual cellular – heterogeneous catalyst strategy to produce olefins from glucose, is the fact of transforming the glucose from the E. coli bacteria into a type of hydrocarbon by means of a chemical reaction. This advance marks a contribution in the fight to decarbonize the economy. Biochemists Zhen Q. Wang, and Michelle C. Y. Chang, oversaw leading the project.
In this way, the authors agree that the process could be replicated to create other types of hydrocarbon molecules present in fuels. They used a strain of E. coli, harmless to humans, which they genetically modified to produce a set of four enzymes capable of converting glucose into compounds called “3-hydroxy fatty acids.”
When the bacteria consumed the glucose and produced 3-hydroxy, the researchers introduced into the process niobium pentoxide (Nb2O5), a catalyst that removes disposable parts of the fatty acids to generate the olefins. In this regard, Wang stressed that the carbon present in glucose, and later in olefins, comes, in fact, from carbon dioxide that has been captured from the atmosphere since “plants produce glucose through photosynthesis, which transforms the carbon dioxide (CO2) and water in oxygen and sugars”.
Now, what remains to be done is to determine the cost of the energy required to produce olefins with this method, depending on whether this new green technology is optimal and can be practiced on an industrial scale. Until then, it still seems implausible that an enterobacterium that is abundant in the gastrointestinal microbiota of individuals is a probable vehicle driver. Nobody can ignore that now it takes 100 glucose molecules to produce around 8 olefin molecules. The challenge is to improve that ratio. The authors believe that one solution is to get the E. coli to produce more 3-hydroxy fatty acids for every gram of glucose consumed, which paints the very favorable outlook for the biofuels industry.
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