New Renewable Fossil Fuel Alternative - The E.Coli Bacteria For Green Energy

As researchers from across the globe are coming up with alternatives for newer sources of green energy, the world is waiting in anticipation for the research to move from 'lab to land'. In one such recent attempt to replace natural fuels such as - diesel, petrol or natural gas, a team from Imperial College London and the University of Turku in Finland has come together to engineer the E.coli bacteria to generate a renewable source of energy aka propane. In today's scenario, Propane is being produced as a by-product at the petroleum refining and natural gas processing plants. It is a standard and globally used source of clean fuel in a variety of applications from the LPG (liquid petroleum gas) to conventional motor vehicles.

By interrupting the process of fatty acids converting into cell membranes using the E.Coli (or Escherichia coli), the research team was able produce very small quantities of renewable propane. This was possible mainly because of the use of an enzyme called thioesterase (that the team discovered) which specifically targets fatty acids and releases them from the natural biological process. Another bacterial enzyme, called CAR, was then used for converting butyric acid into butyraldehyde. And lastly, another enzyme called aldehyde-deformylating oxygenase (ADO) was used to form propane.


Though their proof of concept study is till at a nascent stage, the team is confident that their system can be engineered into the photosynthetic bacteria, and thereby convert the solar energy directly into chemical fuel. If you are thinking why propane, well, the researchers share that the gas can easily escape from the cell and transformed into a liquid state, which is portable and easier to store.

The ever increasing energy demands have made developing a renewable fossil fuel the need of the hour. However, it has to be taken into account that the process to create such fuels has to be low-cost and economically sustainable. Currently, bio-diesel plants are able to churn out fuel using algae, but the harvesting and processing requires a lot of money and energy. Therefore, if this research work kicks off, we will be able to develop propane using minimal energy and it can be used with the existing infrastructure.

The only challenge that remains is turning this into a commercial product. The quantity produced at this stage is a 1000 times lesser than what is needed to achieve that. The researchers believe that before the next decade ends, they will have a synthetic process that can develop propane as an alternative fossil fuel in sufficient quantities. How's that? Share your thoughts with us in comments.

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