E.coli can be used to produce diesel

Genetically modified Escherichia coli can produce a form of biodiesel from plant fuels. They help people reduce carbon dioxide emissions, while reducing fuel production costs. scientists claim so.

Biodiesel, also known as plant-derived diesel substitute, can be made from oil crops such as soybean, oil palm, by heating them with a chemical catalyst.

Escherichia coli bacteria (Photo: eletra.com)

This type of energy can help people reduce greenhouse gas emissions because the bacteria that produce it absorb carbon dioxide, thereby reducing this amount of air in the air. However, for genetically modified bacteria to be useful, humans need an enormous amount of fuel plants, which means they have to spend a lot of land and use toxic chemicals to treat them.

"Biodiesel is a good alternative energy source for diesel fuel derived from petroleum," Alexander Steinbüchel, who created a new type of biodiesel along with his colleagues at Munster University (Germany), said. "However, current biodiesel production measures are still quite expensive."

Steinbüchel's group succeeded in transforming the genome of a fairly common strain of bacteria called Escherichia coli to turn them into bacteria capable of producing biodiesel. The genetically engineered E. coli bacteria are grown in a mixture of glucose and olive oil, They have turned this mixture into a fatty acid called " microdiese l" - a form of plant diesel and capable of Replace diesel derived from oil.

The German team continued to take two genes from Zymomonas mobilis and put them into E.coli bacteria so they could turn sugar into alcohol. A third gene, taken from the bacterium Acinetobacter baylyi , allows E.coli to produce microdiesel from alcohol and vegetable oil.

Unlike many other biofuels, microdiesel is produced without the involvement of toxic chemicals as a catalyst. Steinbüchel confirmed that future tests could allow scientists to create microdiesel from other parts of the plant, instead of using only vegetable oil today. Because other parts of the plant are often discarded after the oil pressing process takes place, this will reduce the need to plant trees to produce biodiesel.

"Because the cost of growing oil-based fuel plants is very low, they are more readily available in nature, so in the future, biodiesel can be produced at a much lower cost than diesel-derived diesel. mine, "Steinbüchel said.

Biodiesel can also change the demand for agricultural land, said Trevor Price, an environmental expert at Glamorgan University (Wales, England).Biodiesel can solve the greenhouse effect and the exhaustion of fossil fuels, but it still needs a lot of soil anyway. Tropical forests can be burned to grow palm, soybean and other oil crops. Many countries will have to choose between fuel and food.

However, Price said that increasing biodiesel production would not be a viable solution in an effort to reduce the level of environmental pollution.

"Instead of finding ways to satisfy fuel needs with cleaner methods, the first thing we should do is try to reduce the amount of fuel used by saving and using them effectively , " he said. comment.

Viet Linh