Synthetic Biology in Biofuels Production

Abstract

Increasing demand of biofuels is inevitable today considering the adverse impact of fossil fuels on environment, issue of its sustainability, rising price, and dependence on foreign countries. However, the question remains on how to produce biofuels in cost effective manner from the non-food resources. The non-food agricultural and forestry residues have recalcitrant biomass that is difficult to hydrolyze via enzymes, and presence of non-conventional pentose sugars and inhibitors makes the sugar fermentation into ethanol a formidable task. Besides, ethanol has its inherent issue of having low energy density and hygroscopic nature, encouraging scientists to look for alternative fuels, such as butanol and hydrocarbons. Algae are another non-food feedstock that is being explored for fuel production, but its low growth rate and low lipid yield in fluctuating environmental growth condition is of great concern. Synthetic biology with its new tools and applications is likely to play a central role in addressing these issues. Keywords: synthetic biology; biofuels; lignocellulosic biomass; metabolic engineering; feedstock engineering; microbial engineering; hydrolytic enzymes; algal fuels