MIT Researchers Develop Waste Gas-to-Liquid Fuel Technology

In the quest for inexpensive feedstocks for the cost-effective production of liquid fuels, Peng Hu and Sagar Chakraborty from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology examined gaseous substrates which could be made available at low cost and sufficient for industrial fuel production.

MIT researchers developed a new bioconversion scheme that effectively converts syngas, generated from gasification of coal, natural gas, or biomass, into lipids that can be used for biodiesel production. The team presents an integrated conversion method comprising a two-stage system.

In the first stage, an anaerobic bioreactor converts mixtures of gases of CO₂ and CO or H₂ to acetic acid using the anaerobic acetogen Moorella thermoacetica. The acetic acid is then fed as a substrate to a second bioreactor, where it is converted into lipids by engineered yeast, Yarrowia lipolytica.

The presented integrated system demonstrates the feasibility of fixation of carbon dioxide and conversion of gaseous feedstock to lipids for biodiesel production.