In Switzerland, researchers at ETH Zurich have engineered bacteria in the laboratory to efficiently use methanol. The metabolism of these bacteria can now be tapped into to produce valuable products currently made by the chemical industry from fossil fuels.
Bacteria that feed on methanol, known as methylotrophs, are at the centre of these efforts. Containing just a single carbon atom, methanol is one of the simplest organic molecules and can be synthesised from the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and water. If the energy for this synthesis reaction comes from renewable sources, the methanol is termed “green”.
been pursuing the idea of equipping the well- understood model bacterium Escherichia coli, which grows on sugar, with the ability to metabolise methanol for several years.
They continued to grow the bacteria under special conditions in the laboratory for more than a year until the microbes could produce all cell components from methanol. Over the course of around 1,000 more generations, these synthetic methylotrophs became increasingly efficient, eventually doubling every four hours when fed only with methanol.
Tags: ETH Zurich, methanol, Switzerland
Category: Research
