For the first time; a research team housed at the University of California Los Angeles and headed by James Liao, have genetically re-engineered a bacteria commonly found in your gut known as e. Coli to produce complex energy-dense alcohols such as the hydrocarbons typically found in fuels like gasoline.

The significant point here is that this is the first time that these types of alcohols have been produced by bacteria (be they man-made or otherwise) in the lab. At least that we know of.

image source – Scanning electron micrograph image of E. coli bacteria

Escherichia Coli – E. coli are a bacterium that is normally to be found in the gastro-intestinal tracts of many animals including humans. Although a few strains of E. coli may cause food poisoning the vast majority are harmless. There are however; a couple of strains that are multi-drug resistant, which is real bad if they get into a wound especially during surgery.

In fact many teams of scientists from around the world have been isolating and studying various strains of E. coli capable of synthesizing various types of chemicals with a view to their being used as a source of biofuel energy for quite a while now.

Biofuel - Biofuels are fuels that are made from biological materials and thus usually represent renewable fuel and energy sources.

Not all biofuels are renewable energy sources, but those that result from the biological conversion of human and non-human generated biological wastes as well as those generated from human and non-human generated non-biological materials by biological organisms into human usable energy fuel sources such as biodiesel, biogas, and biologically generated methane can in the broadest sense be considered to be renewable biologically generated energy resources.

Biofuels Expensive and of Relatively Low Energy Yield and Stability - Up until now; the energy density and stability of the various types of alcohols produced biologically is relatively low, which results in volatile liquids and gases that at best have very low fuel economies. This has made them unsuitable for use as a mass market fuel in motor vehicles. This fact is only compounded by their low economy and the need for specialty handling equipment in comparison to normal gasoline.

The Solution – James Liao’s team have inserted some chromosomes into the E. coli that has resulted in “tricking” the bacteria’s normally very active enzyme production mechanisms into producing longer chain alcohols.

The end result has been the development of a genetically engineered strain of E. coli that outputs alcohols consisting of chains of 8 carbon atoms which greatly increases the energy density of the products of the bacteria’s metabolic output. In fact sufficiently enough that they are in fact a genuine viable economical alternative to normally produced gasoline that requires none of the special handling equipment other such biofuels have to date required.

Comparative Economic Viability – By way of comparison; note that a typical gasoline mixture available for your car consists of a mix of hydrocarbon chains ranging in length from 5 to 12 carbon atoms, with an average of about 8. Ethanol on the other hand is a hydrocarbon consisting of only two carbon atom chains which makes it very volatile and of lower energy density per unit of volume.

Increasing Energy Density per Unit of Volume – The secret to more energy per unit of volume of fuel lies in using longer chain hydrocarbons. This is because longer chains of carbon atoms equates to a higher energy density per unit of volume as well as an increase in the stability of the molecules which makes them considerably less volatile.

Implications – The ultimate goal here has far reaching ecological implications in that the use of genetically engineered E. coli to biologically produce a viable and economical mass-market suitable fuel, nearly indistinguishable from the mined petroleum product but doing so from non-food waste plant materials and garbage.

Conclusions

Nobody goes hungry because we won’t be converting their potential food supply into fuel and far less waste material needs to be dumped somewhere. On top of this we don’t need to mine our diminishing natural fossil fuel reserves.

This later point means that a considerable amount of carbon can stay in the ground and not be converted to CO or CO2 and end up in the atmosphere compounding our already delicate greenhouse problems.