Global Bioenergies is developing, under an exclusive license, a process for the biological production of hydrocarbons from renewable resources.
This process is based on an artificial metabolic pathway involving enzymes carrying out reactions unobserved in nature. The experimental establishment of such an artificial metabolic pathway is a world first, opening up new perspectives for synthetic biology.
This metabolic pathway results in the production of isobutene, a gas consisting of four carbon atoms spontaneously volatilizing during the reaction. Consequently, no purification process is required and the yield limitation usually observed due to accumulation of the product in the reaction medium is also eliminated.
With proven, inexpensive technologies, isobutene can easily be converted into fuels, such as gasoline, kerosene, diesel and ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE), or diverse other materials, including elastomers or organic glass.
The biological production of fungible hydrocarbons for use in the petrochemical industry should make it possible to avoid the complete change in infrastructure required if ethanol, the principal biofuel currently available, were to become the reference source of energy.
The company is currently focusing on improving the yield of this metabolic pathway for producing isobutene, and on its industrialization.
