Reviving the Weizmann process for commercial n-butanol production.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 30206218.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-018-05661-z and PMC identifier 6134114.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Developing a commercial process for the biological production of n-butanol is challenging as it needs to combine high titer, yield, and productivities. Here we engineer Clostridium acetobutylicum to stably and continuously produce n-butanol on a mineral media with glucose as sole carbon source. We further design a continuous process for fermentation of high concentration glucose syrup using in situ extraction of alcohols by distillation under low pressure and high cell density cultures to increase the titer, yield, and productivity of n-butanol production to the level of 550 g/L, 0.35 g/g, and 14 g/L/hr, respectively. This process provides a mean to produce n-butanol at performance levels comparable to that of corn wet milling ethanol plants using yeast as a biocatalyst. It may hold the potential to be scaled-up at pilot and industrial levels for the commercial production of n-butanol.