Commercial Biomass Syngas Fermentation

James Daniell, Michael Köpke and Séan Dennis Simpson
Additional contact information
James Daniell: LanzaTech NZ Ltd., 24 Balfour Road, Parnell, Auckland 1052, New Zealand
Michael Köpke: LanzaTech NZ Ltd., 24 Balfour Road, Parnell, Auckland 1052, New Zealand
Séan Dennis Simpson: LanzaTech NZ Ltd., 24 Balfour Road, Parnell, Auckland 1052, New Zealand

Energies, 2012, vol. 5, issue 12, 1-46

Abstract: The use of gas fermentation for the production of low carbon biofuels such as ethanol or butanol from lignocellulosic biomass is an area currently undergoing intensive research and development, with the first commercial units expected to commence operation in the near future. In this process, biomass is first converted into carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H 2 )-rich synthesis gas (syngas) via gasification, and subsequently fermented to hydrocarbons by acetogenic bacteria. Several studies have been performed over the last few years to optimise both biomass gasification and syngas fermentation with significant progress being reported in both areas. While challenges associated with the scale-up and operation of this novel process remain, this strategy offers numerous advantages compared with established fermentation and purely thermochemical approaches to biofuel production in terms of feedstock flexibility and production cost. In recent times, metabolic engineering and synthetic biology techniques have been applied to gas fermenting organisms, paving the way for gases to be used as the feedstock for the commercial production of increasingly energy dense fuels and more valuable chemicals.

Keywords: biomass; gasification; synthesis gas; syngas; gas fermentation; biofuels; ethanol; butanol; wood-ljungdahl pathway; metabolic engineering; clostridium (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/5/12/5372/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/5/12/5372/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:5:y:2012:i:12:p:5372-5417:d:22330

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().