Enzymatic synthesis of biomass-based fuel methanol

BIOT 124

Ping Wang, ping@umn.edu, Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, University of Minnesota, 2004 Folwell Ave, St Paul, MN 55108, F. Suhan Baskaya, Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, University of Minnesota, 2004 Folwell Ave, St Paul, MN 55108, and Michael C Flickinger, mflick@cbs.umn.edu, Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics; BioTechnology Institute, University of Minnesota, 240 Gortner Lab, 1479 Gortner Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55108.
Like ethanol, methanol is viewed as an easy-to-handle liquid fuel which can be immediately used in internal combustion engines (ICE) and existing fueling stations. Methanol can also be further converted to DME, another useful liquid transportation fuel. Currently methanol is most efficiently produced starting from natural gas in petrochemical plants at a very large scale. Herein we will present the development of a co-immobilized biocatalyst system for efficient synthesis of biomass-based liquid fuel methanol. Specifically we will discuss a multienzyme synthetic pathway for methanol production from CO2, a gasification product of biomass. The biosynthesis of methanol is the reverse process of a biological metabolic pathway catalyzed by thermotolerant dehydrogenases. The expression and production of these enzymes in Bacillus, as well as the experimental results on reaction kinetics and equilibrium of the multistep biotransformation at different conditions including pH, substrate concentration and temperature will be presented.
 

Emerging Technologies: Bioenergy
8:00 AM-11:00 AM, Tuesday, August 21, 2007 BCEC -- 109A, Oral

Division of Biochemical Technology

The 234th ACS National Meeting, Boston, MA, August 19-23, 2007