(174a) Engineering Analysis of Electrofuels Production Processes

Electrofuels use electrons, hydrogen or other source of reducing equivalent to reduce carbon dioxide and generate biofuels. Microbes capable of autotrophic conversion of carbon dioxide to metabolic intermediates such as acetyl CoA are necessary for this process. The ability of natural and engineered microbes to assimilate carbon dioxide with the goal of biofuel production and the rates of conversion will be evaluated. The reduced resources with potential to supply sufficient reducing equivalents will be analyzed in terms of the availability, cost and  methods of making them biologically available. An engineering analysis of the resources needed for electrofuel production will be presented and compared with existing biofuels production platforms.