Testing the feasibility of a new thermophillic strain to improve productivity and economics

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This project concerns the use of thermophillic organisms to produce ethanol from all types of biomass. A recent improvement is that the thermophile converts all sugars to ethanol - unlike yeast which only converts C12 and C6 sugars. This gives the technology a target additional 30% of sugars to convert, thus increasing total output from the same volume of input biomass. This project is to test an alternative thermophile which has the potential to be more efficient than the current organism. This potentially improved organism has been genetically modified to make it more efficient in the production of ethanol from C5 sugars and from glycerol, and with less production of unwanted by-products. The project consists of operating this improved organism in a series of fermentation environments aimed at defining its optimum operating conditions, and thus establishing the fermenter design that would be enable this organism to be used in improved biorefining processes.