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Hydrocarbons, the advanced biofuels produced by different organisms, the evidence that alkanes in petroleum can be renewable

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Abstract

It is generally regarded that the petroleum cannot be renewable. However, in recent years, it has been found that many marine cyanobacteria, some eubacteria, engineered Escherichia coli, some endophytic fungi, engineered yeasts, some marine yeasts, plants, and insects can synthesize hydrocarbons with different carbon lengths. If the organisms, especially some native microorganisms and engineered bacteria and yeasts, can synthesize and secret a large amount of hydrocarbons within a short period, alkanes in the petroleum can be renewable. It has been documented that there are eight pathways for hydrocarbon biosynthesis in different organisms. Unfortunately, most of native microorganisms, engineered E. coli and engineered yeasts, only synthesize a small amount of intracellular and extracellular hydrocarbons. Recently, Aureobasidium pullulans var. melanogenum isolated from a mangrove ecosystem has been found to be able to synthesize and secret over 21.5 g/l long-chain hydrocarbons with a yield of 0.275 g/g glucose and a productivity of 0.193 g/l/h within 5 days. The yeast may have highly potential applications in alkane production.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by National Natural Foundation of China (grant number: 31561163001).

Conflict of interest

All the authors in this manuscript declare that they have no conflict of interest and this article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Marine Life Sciences, Ocean University of China, Yushan Road, No. 5, Qingdao, China

    Wen-Juan Fu, Zhe Chi, Zai-Chao Ma, Hai-Xiang Zhou, Guang-Lei Liu & Zhen-Ming Chi

  2. Department of Applied Science, National Hsinchu University of Education, Hsinchu, Taiwan

    Ching-Fu Lee

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  1. Wen-Juan Fu
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  2. Zhe Chi
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Correspondence to Zhen-Ming Chi.

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Fu, WJ., Chi, Z., Ma, ZC. et al. Hydrocarbons, the advanced biofuels produced by different organisms, the evidence that alkanes in petroleum can be renewable. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 99, 7481–7494 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-6840-6

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