Team:UCSC

From 2014.igem.org

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<tr><td colspan="3" bgColor="#FCFDFE" background = "https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2014/e/e4/UCSC_A23_004.jpg"> <h3> An Introduction to Our Project</h3></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3" bgColor="#FCFDFE" background = "https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2014/e/e4/UCSC_A23_004.jpg"> <h3> An Introduction to Our Project</h3></td></tr>
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    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.
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  <b>Biofuel</b> is growing all around us in grasses and trees, we just haven’t unlocked it yet. Our team wants to give an archea a little push to digest cellulose, the stuff that makes our paper, into biofuel for our engines. Normally a fortress of ligands keeps cellulose under lock and key. To make the cellulose accesible, we need to add an ionic solution to the plant material, which would shrivel up your typical cell. That’s where <i>Haloferax volcanii</i>  comes in. <i>H. volcanii</i>  is a halophile archea, which means it’s cozy in high salt environments. It may be the agent we need to break down the cellulose and survive the ionic solution. <i>H. volcanii</i> can already make butanol out of cellulose. The only problem is, once it has the butanol <i>H. volcanii</i>  keeps processing it into parts for its cell membrane. We want to knock out the right gene so <i>H. volcanii</i>  won’t process the butanol. The butanol should then start piling up, and we’ll have biofuel. This biofuel will still emit CO2 but it won’t add new carbon into the climate because its carbon came from plants instead of fossil fuels. Whatever carbon we add to the climate by using biofuel will be reused on the same scale as we grow more plants that will take in CO2. We can effectively shorten the carbon cycle and stop adding to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere
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    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.
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Revision as of 20:10, 10 July 2014



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WELCOME TO THE UCSC WIKI FOR iGEM 2014!

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

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An Introduction to Our Project

Biofuel is growing all around us in grasses and trees, we just haven’t unlocked it yet. Our team wants to give an archea a little push to digest cellulose, the stuff that makes our paper, into biofuel for our engines. Normally a fortress of ligands keeps cellulose under lock and key. To make the cellulose accesible, we need to add an ionic solution to the plant material, which would shrivel up your typical cell. That’s where Haloferax volcanii comes in. H. volcanii is a halophile archea, which means it’s cozy in high salt environments. It may be the agent we need to break down the cellulose and survive the ionic solution. H. volcanii can already make butanol out of cellulose. The only problem is, once it has the butanol H. volcanii keeps processing it into parts for its cell membrane. We want to knock out the right gene so H. volcanii won’t process the butanol. The butanol should then start piling up, and we’ll have biofuel. This biofuel will still emit CO2 but it won’t add new carbon into the climate because its carbon came from plants instead of fossil fuels. Whatever carbon we add to the climate by using biofuel will be reused on the same scale as we grow more plants that will take in CO2. We can effectively shorten the carbon cycle and stop adding to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere