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Biological conversion of methane to methanol

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Abstract

The conversion of methane to methanol is important to economic utilization of natural/shale gas. Methanol is a valuable liquid fuel and raw material for various synthetic hydrocarbon products. Its industrial production is currently based on a two-step process that is energy-intensive and environmentally unfriendly, requiring high pressure and temperature. The biological oxidation of methane to methanol, based on methane monooxygenase activity of methanotrophic bacteria, is desirable because the oxidation is highly selective under mild conditions, but conversion rate and yield and stability of catalytic activity should be improved up to an industrially viable level. Since methanotrophic bacteria produce methanol as only a precursor of formaldehyde that is then used to synthesize various essential metabolites, the direct use of bacteria seems unsuitable for selective production of a large amount of methanol. There are two types of methane monooxygenase: soluble (sMMO) and particulate (pMMO) enzyme. sMMO consisting of three components (reductase, hydroxylase, and regulatory protein) features an (αβγ)2 dimer architecture with a di-iron active site in hydroxlase. pMMO, a trimer (pmoA, pmoB, and pmoC) in an α 3 β 3 γ 3 polypeptide arrangement is a copper enzyme with a di-copper active site located in the soluble domain of pmoB subunit. Since the membrane transports electrons well and delivers effectively methane with increased solubility in the lipid bilayer, pMMO seems more rationally designed enzyme in nature than sMMO. The engineering/evolution/modification of MMO enzymes using various biological and chemical techniques could lead to an optimal way to reach the ultimate goal of technically and economically feasible and environmentally friendly oxidation of methane. For this, multidisciplinary efforts from chemical engineering, protein engineering, and bioprocess research sectors should be systematically combined.

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  1. Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Korea University, Anam-dong, 5-1, Sungbuk-gu, Seoul, 136-713, Korea

    Donghyun Park & Jeewon Lee

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  1. Donghyun Park
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Jeewon Lee is a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Korea University in Korea. He received his B.S. degree (Seoul National University) and Ph.D. degree (Illinois Institute of Technology) all in Chemical Engineering and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Gas Technology in Chicago. From 1994 to 1997, he was a head of bioprocess engineering laboratory at the Hanhyo Institutes of Technology and also worked at the KRIBB (Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology) for 4 years before joining Korea University in 2002. He was a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010. His research interests include biomolecular process engineering, protein engineering, biosensor/biochip, and nanomedicine.

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Park, D., Lee, J. Biological conversion of methane to methanol. Korean J. Chem. Eng. 30, 977–987 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11814-013-0060-5

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