Twenty‐first‐century chemical odyssey: fuels versus commodities and cell factories versus chemical plants

Abstract

Summary The harmful effects of pollution from the massive and widespread use of fossil fuels have led various organizations and governments to search for alternative energy sources. To address this, a new energy bioprocess is being developed that utilizes non‐edible lignocellulose – the only sustainable source of organic carbon in nature. In this mini‐review, we consider the potential use of synthetic biology to develop new‐to‐nature pathways for the biosynthesis of chemicals that are currently synthesized using classical industrial approaches. The number of industrial processes based on starch or lignocellulose is still very modest. Advances in the area require the development of more efficient approaches to deconstruct plant materials, better exploitation of the catalytic potential of prokaryotes and lower eukaryotes and the identification of new and useful genes for product synthesis. Further research and progress is urgently needed in order for government and industry to achieve the major milestone of transitioning 30% of the total industry to renewable sources by 2050.

United Nations sustainability development goals approached from the side of the biological production of fuels

“…Biofuels are produced from biological materials, most often oils, cereal grains, sugarcane or biomass derived from plants or wastes, and they represent an alternative to fossil fuels that offers a number of social, economic, environmental and technical benefits (Koçar and Civaş, 2013; Voegele, 2013; Ramos et al ., 2016; Valdivia et al ., 2016; Ramos and Duque, 2019). The main drivers behind biofuels are: (i) energy supply security and reduction in fossil oil use (SDG 7: Clean energy); (ii) support of rural areas through technology development and new jobs based on technology (SDG 2, 8 and 9), (iii) mitigation of global GHG emission and reduction of particulate materials that are toxic for humans, animals and plants (SDG 7).…”

One major facilitator superfamily transporter is responsible for propionic acid tolerance in Pseudomonas putida KT2440

“…Currently, the most used commercial route to produce PA uses petrochemical methods (Zhang and Yang, 2009). However, the harmful effects of pollution from the use of unsustainable fossil fuels as starting substrate for the production of chemicals, have led researchers to seek alternative routes, such as using renewable bioresources by microbial cell factories (Ramos and Duque, 2019). To date, biological PA production is mainly achieved by fermentation using Propionibacteria under anaerobic conditions (Suwannakham and Yang, 2005; Zhang and Yang, 2009; Zhuge et al ., 2015).…”

Newly identified genes contribute to vanillin tolerance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

“…Bioconversion of lignocellulosic materials, which are readily available and renewable, for production of biofuel and other valuable products has been the subject of intense studies (Balat, 2011;Koutinas et al, 2016;Bilal et al, 2017, Ramos andDuque, 2019). Pre-treatment is an unavoidable process that is necessary to break the crosslinking of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin in lignocellulosic biomass, and to then facilitate the enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose and the release of monosaccharides (Alvarez et al, 2016, Ramos andDuque, 2019). However, a range of harmful chemicals are generated during this process (Balat, 2011;Sindhu et al, 2016).…”