An MSU professor is a part of a team examining the practicality of an alternative liquid fuel that could eventually replace gasoline.
The process to produce the alternative fuel — called isobutanol — involves using molecular biology on a bacterium called Ralstonia eutropha, allowing it to use hydrogen to produce liquid fuels, said R. Marc Worden, an MSU chemical engineering professor on the team. The group is receiving $1.7 million from the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy to design a reactor to test the microorganism’s production of the fuels.
“Microorganisms have been used to make liquid fuels like ethanol for a long time,” Worden said, “This a different type (of liquid fuel). It’s more compatible with automobiles we have now than ethanol is.”
Currently, 12 billion gallons of ethanol, another alternative fuel, are produced in the U.S., said Bruce Dale, an MSU professor of chemical engineering and an expert in exploring alternative fuels. But if it can be commercialized, isobutanol will have several advantages over ethanol, Dale said.
Isobutanol poses no competition between food and energy, and the microorganisms that produce isobutanol would consume carbon dioxide, a green house gas, Dale said.
Gas is more similar to isobutanol than ethanol, which would allow isobutanol to be distributed through existing pipelines and used in cars with greater ease and fewer modifications.
Compared to the electrical car, isobutanol has the advantage of being able to fuel larger vehicles that could not run on battery power, Dale said.
“The power requirements of some motors, you’ll never get enough power in some batteries to do that,” Dale said, “Planes, long haul trucks, most shipping will never be electrical, so we’re going to have to have liquid fuels.”
The teams’s leader, Anthony Sinskey, a professor of biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he expects to know if the commercialization of isobutanol is possible within the next several years.
“Hopefully in three years we will be able to determine the feasibility of going to the next phase of translating basic science into commercial strategies,” Sinskey said.
If the fuel can be commercialized, Worden said he expects it to be marketable within the next decade.
It is too early to speculate how the new fuel would compare in cost to that of gasoline, Worden said. Currently, the cost of a gallon of ethanol is under $2 per gallon before shipping costs.
Sinskey said Worden has been a key asset in the project.
“This project would not be funded if not for Marc’s very creative approach,” Sinskey said. “His reactor design, it’s very clever.”
Support student media!
Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
Discussion
Share and discuss “MSU, MIT research alternative fuel” on social media.
