Sep 20, 2010 08:06 GMT  ·  By
An OPX biochemist prepares new culture media for developing new strains of microorganisms
   An OPX biochemist prepares new culture media for developing new strains of microorganisms

Using bacteria rather than petroleum, a team of expert was able to develop a method of producing acrylic acid – a key component for numerous plastic items that is usually derived from oil.

According to the team that created the new technique, it would appear that using bacteria for converting sugar into acrylic acid is a lot cheaper, and also more efficient, than deriving the chemicals from dirty fossil fuels.

Engineers at the start-up have already produced microorganisms that are capable of churning up common industrial chemicals. Now, they are doing the same for plastics.

The experts report that they are using strains of Escherichia coli (E. coli) for the job, and that this translates into a 75 percent lower carbon dioxide emission level.

Boulder, Colorado-based OPX Biotechnologies has been involved in this line of work for several years, and is currently working on improving its selection of microorganism strains.

The team here reveals that if a single factory is build that produces acrylic acid from E. coli bacteria, the consumption of about 500,000 barrels of oil would be averted each year.

According to the team at OPX, the technology has already been demonstrated inside a 200-liter experimental fermentation tank, but plans call for a 20,000-liter system to be built in 2011.

The investigation is being sponsored with a three-year, $6 million grant from the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E).

At this point, OPX plans to take things one at a time, but its long-term plan is to build a large, commercial acrylic acid plant by no later than 2014. The facility will be able to produce 100 million tons of acrylic annually.

The company does not invest all of its money into E. coli bacteria that produce plastics. Bioengineers here are also investigating methods of using bacteria for combining carbon dioxide and hydrogen.

If this line of research succeeds, then the team may produce an innovative way of converting these two chemicals into diesel fuel.

Worthy of mention is the fact that all of this will be done using nothing then bacteria, at higher efficiency levels and lower costs than currently possible with petroleum and other fossil fuels.

Employing bacteria-based processes in plants around the world could potentially avert the necessity of millions of barrels of oil each year, helping to reduce pollution and global warming, Technology Review reports.