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Amyris Biotechnologies is developing a large-scale fermentation process to renewably produce biofuels. Amyris is developing a gasoline substitute that contains more energy than ethanol, will result in lower cost and less polluting biofuel blends, and is fully compatible with today’s cars and the existing petroleum infrastructure. We are also developing a diesel substitute that can achieve lower costs and much greater scale than vegetable oil based biodiesels. Our next generation biodiesel is inherently stable in cold temperatures and does not break down during storage and transport like conventional biodiesel. Both our gasoline substitute and our diesel substitute will be made from the same feedstocks and production plants that are used to make ethanol.

Ultimately, Arnold wants to do more than just make cheaper, more efficient enzymes for breaking down cellulose. She wants to design cellulases that can be produced by the same microörganisms that ferment sugars into biofuel. Long a goal of researchers, “superbugs” that can both metabolize cellulose and create fuel could greatly lower the cost of producing cellulosic biofuels. “If you consolidate these two steps, then you get synergies that lower the cost of the overall process,” Arnold says.

Consolidating those steps will require cellulases that work in the robust organisms used in industrial fermentation processes–such as yeast and bacteria. The cellulases will need to be stable and highly active, and they’ll have to tolerate high sugar levels and function in the presence of contaminants. Moreover, researchers will have to be able to produce the organisms in sufficient quantities. This might seem like a tall order, but over the years, Arnold has developed a number of new tools for making novel proteins. She pioneered a technique, called directed evolution, that involves creating many variations of genes that code for specific proteins. The mutated genes are inserted into microörganisms that churn out the new proteins, which are then screened for particular characteristics.

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LS9′s world headquarters looks like a dorm room on move-out day. The reception area at the biotech company’s San Carlos, California, digs is stark white, unashamedly bare. No one has bothered to spring for prints or posters for the walls, not even from Ikea. Haphazard stacks of boxes line every corridor. It’s no surprise LS9 doesn’t put much of a premium on appearances–after all, its most important employees are patented microbes too small to be seen. “This is where we grow the bacteria,” says Steve del Cardayré, the company’s vice president for research and development, leading me to a lab space no bigger than your typical college double. He points to a vat containing an oatmeal-like slurry–carbohydrates derived from plant matter that feed the microbes. “After they’re finished growing, all we have to do is take the mixture out and spin it, and density makes it separate into its components.” Click here to read the full article

Biomass gasification is different from cellulosic ethanol in at least two major respects. First of all, it is a combustion process, not a fermentation process. As a combustion process, it can be self-sustaining once the combustion is initiated. It does not require continual inputs of energy as is the case with a fermentation process. The products of biomass gasification are syngas and heat, if the reaction is operated in an oxygen-deficient mode, or CO2 and steam (and much more heat) in the case where sufficient oxygen is supplied. In the case of the former, the syngas can be further reacted to make a wide variety of compounds, including methanol, ethanol, or diesel (via the Fischer-Tropsch reaction). A biomass gasification process followed by conversion to a liquid fuel is commonly referred to as a biomass-to-liquids (BTL) process.

However, there is one other major factor that differentiates biomass gasification from cellulosic ethanol. Biomass consists of a number of different components, including cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. In the case of cellulosic ethanol, only the cellulose and hemicellulose are partially converted after being broken down to sugars. The lignin and other uncoverted carbon compounds end up as (wet) waste, suitable for burning as process fuel only if thoroughly dried. Conversion is limited to those components which can be broken down into the right kind of sugars and fermented.

Gasification, on the other hand, converts all of the carbon compounds. Lignin, a serious impediment and waste product in the case of cellulosic ethanol, is easily converted to syngas in a gasifier. The conversion of carbon compounds in a gasification process can be driven essentially to completion if desired, and the resulting inorganic mineral wastes can be returned to the soil.