WELCOME TO THE UCSC WIKI FOR iGEM 2014!

We are excited to introduce you to our project and our team of:
biologists, biochemists,
bioengineers, and bioinformaticians.

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An Introduction to Our Project

Biofuels like ethanol have received much attention in recent years as demand for cleaner renewable energy increases. Liquid fuels are vital for supplying the growing global energy demand. Conventional biofuel production centers around biomass like corn, sugar cane, and soy that is fed into factories for processing. This process can be expensive and the starting materials often compete for land with food stocks. Use of biofuels is hindered by the low energy content of current products. Butanol provides comparable amounts of energy to gasoline, can be use in current infrastructure, and burns substantially cleaner. Butanol is difficult to produce conventionally and remains expensive. Emerging technologies are now facilitating high value chemical production at a fraction of the cost.

Our project will provide a cheaper way of producing the high value chemical butanol that will not compete with food stocks for land and provide a source of renewable liquid energy that will reduce our carbon footprint. Our system will utilize microbial fuel production to convert cellulose, wood waste, into butanol. We will utilize an organism that prefers to live in extreme environments, allowing us to reduce preprocessing, thereby reducing the cost of refinement. A mixture of 85% butanol to 15% gasoline can be used in current infrastructure without modifications. By coupling the emerging technology of microbial fuel production with a renewable source of feedstock and a suitable host organism, we will facilitate a cheaper way to produce large amounts of a fuel that will reduce pollution.