PI Name: Brent Peyton Institution: Montana State University Proposal Number: 0937613
EFRI: EFRI-HyBi: Fungal Processes for Direct Bioconversion of Cellulose to Hydrocarbons
This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)
An interdisciplinary team from Bio/Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biochemistry, and Plant Science at Montana State University (MSU) and Yale University will focus on a recently emerging biotechnology for direct production of hydrocarbons (chemically equivalent to petroleum) from waste cellulose feedstock.
Gliocladium roseum (NRRL 50072) is an endophytic fungus recently isolated from Northern Patagonia by Gary Strobel (MSU). G. roseum produces and excretes "mycodiesel", an extensive series of straight chained and branched medium chain-length hydrocarbons, including heptane, octane, undecane, dodecane and hexadecane. This organism has the potential to produce petroleum directly using a cellulose fermentation process that is essentially carbon neutral. Peyton (MSU) and G. Strobel will oversee the characterization and optimization of G. roseum to obtain quantitative bioprocessing parameters to maximize diesel-range hydrocarbon production. This will also provide a baseline for calibration of metabolic flux analysis models and comparison for efforts focused on improving hydrocarbon production rates and yields.
Yale's Scott Strobel will focus on annotating the existing G. roseum genome to support the development of the metabolic flux analysis model which will in turn guide experiments to maximize hydrocarbon yields and production rates. Ross Carlson (MSU) will develop these numerical metabolic flux models to allow in silico predictions of effects of culturing conditions on cell yields and hydrocarbon production. Mitchell Smooke (Yale) will provide detailed evaluations of the fuel/burning characteristics of component hydrocarbons produced in the mycodiesel mixture.
Intellectual Merit: The proposed research challenges the current prototype for fuel production from waste cellulose. In contrast to ethanol systems, by potentially eliminating separate saccharification processing, this proposed fungal technology can bypass one of the most costly and energy intensive steps of waste cellulose conversion. Further, while much national effort has focused on ethanol production, beyond characterization of cellulolytic fungal enzymes, very little research has examined the potential role of fungi in renewable fuel production. This interdisciplinary team will utilize state of the art molecular, bioengineering, metabolic modeling, and fuel analysis techniques to characterize and optimize G. roseum for direct cellulose to fuel conversion processes and to enhance fuel hydrocarbon yield. Overall, through direct conversion of cellulose to petroleum, the proposed research will significantly change the paradigm for production of renewable fuels and has the long term potential to yield a large variety of renewable chemicals.
Broader Impacts: Only 15% of current fuel needs could be met if all U.S corn was converted to ethanol. Obviously, alternatives to corn are needed. In Montana alone, the estimated the annual supply of forest residues is 1,317,000 dry tons per year (USDA and USDOE, 2005) and it was estimated the U.S. could sustainably produce 368 million dry tons of forest biomass. Clearly, a novel technology that could directly convert waste biomass into fuel grade hydrocarbons would be a significant paradigm shift in current renewable fuel strategies. The PIs propose an integration of microbiology, molecular biology, metabolic modeling, and bio/chemical engineering that will educate, develop, and exchange students from both Montana State University and Yale University. The team will make presentations at the public science lecture series in Bozeman, participate in the "Scientist for a Day" program targeting rural community kids, contribute to the "Frontiers of Science" program designed to expose high school juniors and seniors to leading edge scientific research at Yale, and will present guest lectures on both campuses on Energy and Sustainability. Funding is also included in the proposal to integrate Native American undergraduate students into the project through MSU's American Indian Research Opportunities (AIRO) and Montana's Tribal Colleges. MSU has a long-term history of supporting American Indian students in research positions, and this has been a successful program for improving Native American B.S. degrees at MSU. This project would open many new doors to an important and relatively unexplored alternative to meeting our renewable fuels needs.
