Iio-Isopentenol as a Fuel from Fibre-based Fermentation.

 

By D. A. Flores

 

 

 

The Problem and the Potential.

 

The conventional route to making isopentenol was to adapt an enzyme structure-function molecule by adding an extra carbon (1C) with E. coli as the recombinant or modified host in their rec-plasmids. The other way would be to randomly apply mutational change (e. g. X-rays) with selection for enzymes that do although it was called to question as to the probabilities and ease of doing so.

 

It might be that our biomolecular intermediates pose less hazard in terms of toxicity to the host allowing higher titre of product to evolve in the reaction chamber or fermentor at lower costs per unit product. 

 

In the journey towards improvization to improve process engineering for hi-density, low-knocking alcohols as biofuels like isopentenol (5C) and isobutanol (4C) utilizing gene edited (GEditing) metabolism, in this case, from plants using E. coli (and maybe yeast down the road) as host for biofermentation using byproduct feedstocks as likely inputs and further downstream with chemical engineered processing.

 

 

Isopentenyl Adenosine (IPA) as Starting Material in the Synthesis. 

 

The plant growth regulator or metabolite as starting material is called isopentenyl adenosine (IPA). The enzymes in particular won't be mentioned here for our purposes but they presumably will be cleanly spliced into the plasmids imported into the hosts in the biofermentor. 

 

 FIG. 1  Structure of Starting Substrate Isopentenyl Adenosine (IPA).

 

 

    BASE - NH - CH2 - CH=C - CH3         Base = Adenosine

                                      |

                                    CH3 

 

     

In our procedure the steps are taken as ff.:

 

1. IPA is synthesized biochemically as in plants (as the growth regulator) and enzymes in that sequence are GEdited per enzyme in E. coli hosts (or yeast) from fibre biomass or wood pulp from intermediates.

 

2. The chemical downstream processing is by: a) H2O addition, b) H2 elimination and forming a stable concatenated double-bonded structure after racemization, both a) and b) being via catalysis, and, finally, c) acid-catalyzed hydrolysis and d) elimination to yield isopentenol as a biofuel product.

 

The bi-product would be adenosine (the base). 

 

 

(c) D. A. Flores. Skye Blue SB Internet. Port Coquitlam BC V3B 1G3 Canada.