Biological conversion of cellulosic biomass into fuels and commodity chemicals is a sustainable alternative to present petroleum-based production platforms. Economic analyses indicate that substantial cost reductions can be achieved by integrating all required biological functions into a single bioreactor (termed consolidated bioprocessing). As a proof of concept, the PI has demonstrated direct conversion of microcrystalline cellulose and pretreated corn stover to isobutanol, a promising next-generation biofuel. Due to its efficiency, modularity, and robustness, the proposed microbial coculture technology platform has great commercial potential for cost-effective production of many other biofuels and valuable biochemicals.
The proposed platform could reduce processing costs for potential customers/partners by decreasing the number of reactors required and/or eliminating to the need to purchase hydrolytic enzymes. Furthermore, the proposed system could enable customers/partners to transition from food-based to more abundant, sustainable, and lower-cost lignocellulose feedstocks.
We evaluated the commercial potential of a novel technology for highly efficient production of biofuels and chemicals from renewable and inexpensive bio-feedstocks. Inspired in part by synergies in ubiquitous microbial communities in nature, our technology integrates diverse microbes with distinct metabolic capabilities into coordinated consortia that can achieve complicated biological transformations in a highly optimized manner. Our I-Corps team consisted of Dr. Xiaoxia "Nina" Lin, a faculty at the University of Michigan, Dr. Jeremy J. Minty, a recent graduate from Dr. Lin’s research group, and Dr. Geoff Horst, an entrepreneur with a deep scientific background in the algal biofuel/chemical industry. Drs. Lin and Minty are the main inventors of this microbial co-culture technology. Through extensive market research and customer discovery, it was concluded that the technology has tremendous commercial potential due to its transformative power in reducing costs and tremendous flexibility which renders new products. Additionally, it was found that high-value biochemicals are promising market entry points for this technology. We further identified a biopolymer that can be synthesized cost-effectively through our microbial co-culture concept and has great potential in a wide variety of applications due to its unique properties such as super water absorbance. We invented a new microbial co-culture for the efficient production of this biopolymer and conducted preliminary lab work. Based largely on findings from this project, a start-up company Ecovia Renewables was founded to commercialize the microbial co-culture technology. Ecovia has been focusing on the biopolymer described above by conducting further technology development as well as market research.
