SBIR Phase II: Novel microalgae for high yield hydrogen production

小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目的更广泛影响是开发一种基于微藻的商业制氢工艺，该工艺将超过现有或正在开发的技术。低成本、高纯度、可再生、可扩展的氢气生产技术可以促进国内更大的能源独立性。许多行业，如石化、化工和电子行业，将受益于低成本的工业氢气。运输和发电行业将受益于燃料效率的提高。环境效益包括化石燃料的替代，将氢气生产从天然气转向阳光和水，大幅减少排放。以及减少燃煤和天然气发电厂产生的空气污染物。该项目的目标是促进工程藻类的使用，结合生物处理和硬件工程方面的最新进展，生产清洁、可再生的氢气。拟议中的项目将利用一种新的代谢工程策略开发产生高氢气产量的微藻菌株。由于复杂的代谢途径和保护氢气产生的基因调控，氢气产生速率的提高是具有挑战性的。拟议的项目将在目标工艺条件下创造先进的藻类菌株，将提高的产氢率与强劲的生长结合在一起。目的是：1)设计嵌合基因以实施代谢工程策略；2)验证藻类中过表达专有氢酶基因cHYD1的工程基因；3)确定亲本菌株的基因类型对嵌合基因的影响；4)结合已开发的亲本基因中的最佳选择基因，产生新的生产菌株；以及5)在受控测试条件下，在生产菌株中证明足够的产氢速率。该项目将在目标商业流程环境中生产所需的生产菌株，并大大提高氢气率。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is the development of a microalgae-based commercial hydrogen production process that will surpass current or developing technologies. A technology for low-cost, high purity, renewable, scalable hydrogen production can facilitate greater domestic energy independence. Many industries, such as the petro-chemical, chemical, and electronics sectors, would benefit from low-cost industrial hydrogen. Transportation and electric power generation industries would benefit from increased fuel efficiency. Environmental benefits include replacement of fossil fuels, switching hydrogen production from natural gas to sunlight and water, substantial emissions reduction. and reduction of airborne pollutants generated by coal- and natural gas-powered power plants. The goal of this project is to advance the use of engineered algae, in combination with recent advances in bioprocessing and hardware engineering, to manufacture clean, renewable hydrogen. The proposed project will develop microalgae strains that generate high hydrogen yields using a novel metabolic engineering strategy. Hydrogen production rates are challenging to improve due to complicated metabolic pathways and gene regulation guarding hydrogen production. The proposed project will create advanced algal strains combining increased hydrogen production rates with robust growth under the target process conditions. The objectives are: 1) engineer the chimeric genes to implement the metabolic engineering strategy, 2) validate the engineered genes in algae overexpressing a proprietary hydrogenase gene cHYD1, 3) determine effects of genotypes of parental strains on the chimeric genes, 4) combine the best selected genes in the developed parental genotypes and generate new production strains; and 5) demonstrate adequate H2 production rates in the production strains under controlled testing conditions. This project will produce the desired production strain with greatly increased hydrogen rates in the target commercial process environment.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.