Accelerating the Rate-Limiting Step in Novel Enzymatic Carbohydrate-to-Hydrogen Technology by Enzyme Engineering
Abstract
Carbohydrate, which is renewable, carbon-neutral, and evenly distributed, will replace oil because of lower costs ($/GJ), better performance in the transport sector, better safety, and more applications (e.g., hydrogen carrier and electricity storage compound). Via AFOSR support, several goals were accomplished (1) demonstration of the highest-yield hydrogen production from cellulosic materials and water by using in vitro synthetic biology platform, (2) a 10-fold increase in enzymatic hydrogen generation rate, (3) validation of numerous enzymes with enough stability for low-cost hydrogen production (i.e., total turn-over number of 10E7-10E9 mol of product/mol of enzyme), and (4) development of the most energy efficient way for the production of low-sulfur jet fuel from biomass sugars by a hybrid of biocatalysis and catalysis. Furthermore, the energy efficiency suggested that a small fraction of the USA biomass resource (i.e., 7%) would be sufficient to replace all imported crude oil if biomass utilization efficiency was increased greatly.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 30, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA567201
Entities
People
- Y. P . Zhang
Organizations
- Virginia Tech