Dec 20, 2008 10:20 am US/Pacific
Forget Ethanol, UCLA Looks At Bacteria For Fuel
LOS ANGELES
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E. coli is a common bacteria that thrives naturally in warm places, such as the human gut. Although it usually cannot cause sickness, it is easy to test for and is used as an indicator for sewage spills or polluted beaches.
AP
A strain of bacteria usually associated with polluted beaches has been genetically modified by UCLA scientists, and the new bug has the potential of making jet fuel, gasoline and other petroleum products that deliver much more energy.
E. coli, the humble bug found in human digestive tracts, can be modified so that each cell can generate "long-chain alcohol," an advance that could reduce global warming and increase fuel efficiency by using the bacteria to excrete a better form of fuel, UCLA announced.
Scientists at UCLA have for the first time produced E. coli that can generate alcohol with five carbon atoms per molecule, instead of the normal two or three. Alcohol molecules with eight carbon atoms may also be possible, they report in this month's edition of the scientific journal Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences.
Lead scientist James Liao, at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, says the E. coli will be able to create biofuels that reduce pollution and deliver much-more energy per molecule than traditional biofuels like Ethanol.
"We wanted to create larger, longer-chain molecules because they contain more energy," the team wrote in the science journal. "This is significant in the production of gasoline and even jet fuel."
The new E. Coli bugs would be unleashed on organic material, much like Ethanol is produced from corn. But Ethanol has only two carbon atoms per molecule, and the greater the number of carbon atoms from the bacteria will increase the density of the biofuel, the UCLA team said.
Ketchun Zang, a co-author of the study, said E. coli was chosen for modification because "the genetic system is well known, it grows quickly and we can engineer it very easily.
"But this technique can actually be used on many different organisms, opening the door to vast possibilities in the realm of polymer (manufacturing), as well as drug manufacturing."
E. coli is a common bacteria that thrives naturally in warm places, such as the human gut. Although it usually cannot cause sickness, it is easy to test for and is used as an indicator for sewage spills or polluted beaches.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
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