The Need

Renewable energy resources have gained global interest due to environmental issues, climate change, oil price and supply volatility, and decreasing nonrenewable fossil fuel sources. Butanol is a biofuel alternative that can provide a higher heating value, lower volatility, polarity, corrosivity, and heat of vaporization, and easily replace diesel fuel without engine modifications. Traditionally, butanol is produced through petrochemical processes, limiting its use in the chemical industry due to its high production price and harmful environmental effects. More recently, fermentation has been investigated to improve production and decrease costs.

The Technology

OSU research has led to the development of a bioengineered microbial consortium that demonstrate improved n-butanol yields from lignocellulose feedstocks (e.g. glucose, xylose) while eliminating harmful CO2 byproducts. Thus far, the inventors have developed the process and showed in laboratory experiments the ability to produce a 50% higher butanol yield than conventional acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation without CO2 as a byproduct.

• Eliminates CO2 production.
• Improves n-butanol yield from lignocellulose (glucose, xylose) by 50%
• Fermentation process to produce n-butanol
• Product yield of ~0.56g per g of sugar

Commercial Applications

This technology can produce butanol for many industries, including chemicals and solvents, fuel for automobiles/trucks, and energy production.

Benefits/Advantages

Compared to existing butanol production methods, this technology produces 50% more butanol from sugar than industry standard methods while using less energy. As a result, the cost for production is about 50% less and does not release harmful CO2 into the atmosphere

Patent Status

PCT patent application filed