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Relative potential of biosynthetic pathways for biofuels and bio-based products

Nature Biotechnology volume 29, pages 1074–1078 (2011)Cite this article

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To the Editor:

Concerns about the sustainability of fossil fuels and global warming1, along with energy security2, have provided a strong incentive recently toward research and development of carbon-neutral alternatives including next-generation biofuels. Currently up to 10% ethanol blends are being used in gasoline with higher biofuel blending targets being used or contemplated by various governments3. The compatibility of higher ethanol blends with existing infrastructure still needs to be validated, hence calls for development of fuel molecules beyond ethanol. Second-generation biofuel molecules are likely to resemble those present in gasoline (that is, C4-C10 branched chain hydrocarbons or derivatives thereof including alcohols) and expected to be compatible with existing infrastructure. Another characteristic of second-generation biofuels is that they are expected to entail lower energy input in downstream purification to fuel-grade specifications compared with ethanol, thus engendering the possibility of biofuels with higher return on energy input compared with ethanol.

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Figure 1: Model assumptions for the general energy flow in a pathway.
Figure 2: Summary of various pathways for bulk biochemical and/or fuel production.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support of this work by the Department of Energy ARPA-E program on Electrofuels.

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  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Deepak Dugar & Gregory Stephanopoulos

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  1. Deepak Dugar
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  2. Gregory Stephanopoulos
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Correspondence to Gregory Stephanopoulos.

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Dugar, D., Stephanopoulos, G. Relative potential of biosynthetic pathways for biofuels and bio-based products. Nat Biotechnol 29, 1074–1078 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.2055

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