TY - JOUR
T1 - Physiological tolerance and stoichiometric potential of cyanobacteria for hydrocarbon fuel production
AU - Kämäräinen, Jari
AU - Knoop, Henning
AU - Stanford, Natalie J.
AU - Guerrero, Fernando
AU - Akhtar, M. Kalim
AU - Aro, Eva Mari
AU - Steuer, Ralf
AU - Jones, Patrik R.
N1 - Funding Information:
The research leading to these results has received funding from the Foundation for Research of Natural Resources in Finland and European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-ENERGY-2010-1) under grant agreement no. [256808].
PY - 2012/11/30
Y1 - 2012/11/30
N2 - Cyanobacteria are capable of directly converting sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into hydrocarbon fuel or precursors thereof. Many biological and non-biological factors will influence the ability of such a production system to become economically sustainable. We evaluated two factors in engineerable cyanobacteria which could potentially limit economic sustainability: (i) tolerance of the host to the intended end-product, and (ii) stoichiometric potential for production. Alcohols, when externally added, inhibited growth the most, followed by aldehydes and acids, whilst alkanes were the least inhibitory. The growth inhibition became progressively greater with increasing chain-length for alcohols, whilst the intermediate C6 alkane caused more inhibition than both C3 and C11 alkane. Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 was more tolerant to some of the tested chemicals than Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942, particularly ethanol and undecane. Stoichiometric evaluation of the potential yields suggested that there is no difference in the potential productivity of harvestable energy between any of the studied fuels, with the exception of ethylene, for which maximal stoichiometric yield is considerably lower. In summary, it was concluded that alkanes would constitute the best choice metabolic end-product for fuel production using cyanobacteria if high-yielding strains can be developed.
AB - Cyanobacteria are capable of directly converting sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into hydrocarbon fuel or precursors thereof. Many biological and non-biological factors will influence the ability of such a production system to become economically sustainable. We evaluated two factors in engineerable cyanobacteria which could potentially limit economic sustainability: (i) tolerance of the host to the intended end-product, and (ii) stoichiometric potential for production. Alcohols, when externally added, inhibited growth the most, followed by aldehydes and acids, whilst alkanes were the least inhibitory. The growth inhibition became progressively greater with increasing chain-length for alcohols, whilst the intermediate C6 alkane caused more inhibition than both C3 and C11 alkane. Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 was more tolerant to some of the tested chemicals than Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942, particularly ethanol and undecane. Stoichiometric evaluation of the potential yields suggested that there is no difference in the potential productivity of harvestable energy between any of the studied fuels, with the exception of ethylene, for which maximal stoichiometric yield is considerably lower. In summary, it was concluded that alkanes would constitute the best choice metabolic end-product for fuel production using cyanobacteria if high-yielding strains can be developed.
KW - Cyanobacteria
KW - Fuel
KW - Hydrocarbon
KW - Stoichiometric potential
KW - Toxicity
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jbiotec.2012.07.193
DO - 10.1016/j.jbiotec.2012.07.193
M3 - Article
C2 - 22954891
AN - SCOPUS:84867649126
SN - 0168-1656
VL - 162
SP - 67
EP - 74
JO - Journal of Biotechnology
JF - Journal of Biotechnology
IS - 1
ER -