Points that can be used in HP wiki writups
| Date | |
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| Department | HP |
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| Type | Deliverables |
One method to obtain food and renewable fuels from the oxygenic photosynthetic process is to supply plant biomass to Escherichia coli (E. coli), yeasts or other well understood microorganisms for fermentation to get the desired compound(s). However, due to the multiple steps in this process, from energy absorption by plants to fermentation by heterotrophic organisms, the solar energy-to-product efficiency is very low, for example 0.2% in ethanol production from sugarcane fermentation.3 In addition, E. coli and yeasts are not able to ferment all types of plant biomass components. For example, the most abundant carbohydrate, lignocellulose from plant materials, needs to be broken down into smaller molecules before it can be used. This breaking down process requires enzymes, high temperature, or/and high pressure.4 Besides, using crop plants as the source of sugar for fermentation is not a viable alternative on a large scale, as it would lead to less arable land available for food production. —— from https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2018/se/c8se00281a