Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Oh, Sugar Sugar: Low Cost Sugar from Cyanobacteria

Sweet promises from Proterro Inc:
The company projects it can produce its sucrose at a cost of less than $.05/lb.—far less than sugarcane, corn, other energy crops, or cellulosic sugar approaches._GCC
Proterro Inc. is moving ahead with $3.5 million in new funding, in developing its low cost process of sucrose production using modified cyanobacteria. The resulting sucrose product will be used as feedstock in production of high value chemicals and fuels.

Proterro has engineered cyanobacteria (from the group consisting of Synechococcus and Synechocystis) that naturally produce only sucrose to secrete the sucrose in a continuous, high-yield process. The sucrose can then be used in the production of biofuels and biochemicals.

_GCC

Low cost non-food sugars will be a boon to a wide range of industries, particularly chemical industries that utilise fermentation -- including production of butanol.

If Proterro can deliver on its sweet promises, we are likely to see significant substitution of bio-based fuels and chemicals in place of crude oil in many different multi-billion dollar markets.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Matt M said...

The In Crowd is already down on High Fructose Corn Syrup. They will lose their lunch over cyanobacteria fructose syrup.

7:13 AM  
Blogger Oleg said...

I would not buy this information. Cost of sugar can be reduced if to shorten transportation and to use mechanized tools for cutting and loading of the sugarcane, as well as if cheap fertilizers are available. Also, sugarcane is a source of energy if to burn it or to convert to bio-gas. As for Cyanobacteria, anybody who was keeping aquarium is aware what a nasty staff it is. It even can etch a surface layer of glasses with high Sodium content and make it not transparent. While producing gasses and allegedly sugar the Cyanobacteria grows. To filter out them from water is a nightmare. They kill any not sophisticated filtration system in a matter of days. So, IMO it is one more crap of "green energy" and genetic manipulations.

5:51 AM  

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