You may be unaware of it and most likely are, but the very guts in your stomach are a factory for microbes that could very well help power large trucks and other moving vehicles.
Scientists have found a way to bring together elements from the camphor tree, "bits and pieces of various microbes" and the genetic code of Escherichia coli (aka E. coli) in order to "convince" the E. coli to produce hydrocarbons. Such hydrocarbon molecules are also known as diesel and hence can be used as biofuel.
"We wanted to make biofuels that could be used directly with existing engines to completely replace fossil fuels," biologist John Love of the University of Exeter in England said, as relayed by Scientific American.
"Our next step will be to try to develop a bacterium that could be deployed industrially," said Love, who also led this biofuel research and published his findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, April 22,.
E. coli is almost custom-designed for such research into biofuels, as it is capable of withstanding a significant amount of acidity and warmth, both of which are found in the tract of the human digestive system. E. coli's durability also helps in its ability to produce longer-chain hydrocarbons in a manner similar to that of cells from brewer's yeast being killed off by their own fermenting alcohol.
"The engineered E. coli used genetic code from the insect pathogen Photorhabdus luminescens and from the cyanobacterium Nostoc punctiforme as well as its fellow gut microbe Bacillus subtilis to make the fuel molecules from fatty acids, along with a gene from the camphor tree-Cinamomum camphora-to cut the resulting hydrocarbon to the right length," Scientific American reports.
A problem with the E. coli hydrocarbon biofuel plan, however, seems to be price. Because E. coli feeds on sugar and yeast extract, the results would be a more expensive fuel than that we acquire from oil found plentifully in the ground.
"We are hopeful that we could change their diet to something less valuable to humanity," Love said. "For example, organic wastes from agriculture or even sewage."
Another issue is that it is still unknown how the process works at all. At this point, it's only understood that the microbes "somehow" secrete hydrocarbons from cells produced.
"We don't know how they get there yet," Love said.
Though this "gut microbe biofuel" is an exciting development, there's clearly still a great deal of work ahead.
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