Biofuels in Operation

Synthetic biology – pathways to commercialisation

“…Infrastructural inertia not only applies to the processes that make and distribute liquid transport fuels but also to the persistence in the market of the engines that are designed to use them. Biology does not naturally provide components that can fully substitute the grades of fuel required by modern engines [23]. Ethanol is the most common biofuel blending component due to familiarity with and prevalence of the fermentation process, but it is restricted to use at relatively low concentrations in the gasoline mix by typical engine tolerances.…”