(382b) Strategic Assessment of Prospective Biomass-to-Biofuel (B2B) Conversion Processes

Economic and geopolitical factors (high oil prices, environmental concerns and oil supply instability) have been prompting policy makers to pay increasing attention on renewable resources for biofuel production. This is not the first time that biomass is considered as a key feedstock for the sustainable production of a significant fraction on the total liquid fuel demand. However, current efforts for biomass-to-biofuel (B2B) conversion are characterized by renewed optimism which is rooted on, (a) the advent of the New Biology (embodied in genomic technologies and unparalleled capabilities to modulate gene expression), and, (b) rapid advances in Metabolic Engineering, the platform of technologies available for microbe engineering and strain improvement that fuses core principles of chemical reaction engineering and applied molecular biology for the design and optimization of metabolic pathways.

The key requirements of a future cost-effective biorefinery designed for liquid fuel production from biomass are, (a) a sustainable supply of biomass feedstock, (b) efficient processes for the deconstruction of biomass and release of fermentable simple sugars, and, (c) optimal microbial biocatalysts capable of converting these sugars to the biofuel of choice at high rates, yields and final concentrations. Despite significant progress in advancing the specific figures of merit in each of the above critical areas, significant challenges remain before an overall optimal B2B conversion bioprocess can be configured. This talk will identify and discuss the key limiting factors and critical challenges in each of the above areas that must be overcome before realizing a cost-competitive biofuel production process. Particular attention will be focused on schemes for sustainable biomass supply at scale, existing and emerging methods of biomass degradation, and new directions for microbe engineering for the production of ethanol as well as other future biofuels. The latter encompass a variety of options each of which poses its own specific requirements in terms of pathway construction, strain optimization, tolerance to toxic substrates and products, and overall process configuration. Metabolic engineering emerges as the key technology in meeting some of these objectives and current successes in technology development through strain improvement increases the optimism for eventual realization of cost-effective biorefineries embodying B2B conversion bioprocesses.