More biofuel from biofuel-waste

By Maxwell Addo

For a long term sustainability of biofuel production, there would be the need to consider producing more biofuels from glycerol, a biofuel waste. Glycerol is one of the byproducts of bioethanol production. Carbon atoms in glycerol can easily be reduced with higher efficiency to produce more bioethanol.

Several natural and engineered species of genera Escherichia, Clostridium, Lactobacillus, Bacillus, Propionibacterium and Anaerobiospirillum will be important in this new industry of fermentative metabolism of glycerol into bioethanol. Research has found out that theoretically, glycerol will produce more biofuel than the traditional fermentation of glucose.

Production of glycerol-waste from biofuel production has increased since 2004. With the view of reducing the quantity of corn use for bioethanol production in order to reduce of cost of animal feedstock (since corn is also use to feed farm animals) there is the need to consider converting more of the glycerol produced in bioethanol production from corn into more bioethanol.

 

 

 

Figure from the review by Clomburg, J M, & Gonzalez R. showing US biodiesel production and crude glycerol price (www.thejacobsen.com) published in Trends in Biotechnology Journal, January 2013 edition.

Original Article: Clomburg, J M, & Gonzalez R. (2013). Anaerobic fermentation of glycerol: a platform for renewable fuels and chemicals. Trends in Biotechnology Journal, Vol.31 No. 1