State of the art review of biofuels production from lignocellulose by thermophilic bacteria

• Published in: Bioresource technology Vol. 245; no. Pt B; pp. 1498 - 1506
• Main Authors: Jiang, Yujia, Xin, Fengxue, Lu, Jiasheng, Dong, Weiliang, Zhang, Wenming, Zhang, Min, Wu, Hao, Ma, Jiangfeng, Jiang, Min
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2017
• Subjects: Bacteria; Biofuel; Biofuels; bioprocessing; butanol; Clostridium; coculture; Consolidated bioprocessing; cost effectiveness; ethanol; Fermentation; Humans; Lignin; Lignocellulose; Metabolic construction; species; temperature; thermophiles; Thermophilic; Metabolic construction; Biofuel; Thermophilic; Lignocellulose; Consolidated bioprocessing
• ISSN: 0960-8524; 1873-2976; 1873-2976
• DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2017.05.142

•Ethanol production by thermophilic bacteria especially via consolidated bioprocessing is reviewed.•Butanol production by thermophilic bacteria is reviewed and compared.•Further prospects on improvement of butanol production is proposed. Biofuels, including ethanol and butanol, are mainly produced by mesophilic solventogenic yeasts and Clostridium species. However, these microorganisms cannot directly utilize lignocellulosic materials, which are abundant, renewable and non-compete with human demand. More recently, thermophilic bacteria show great potential for biofuels production, which could efficiently degrade lignocellulose through the cost effective consolidated bioprocessing. Especially, it could avoid contamination in the whole process owing to its relatively high fermentation temperature. However, wild types thermophiles generally produce low levels of biofuels, hindering their large scale production. This review comprehensively summarizes the state of the art development of biofuels production by reported thermophilic microorganisms, and also concludes strategies to improve biofuels production including the metabolic pathways construction, co-culturing systems and biofuels tolerance. In addition, strategies to further improve butanol production are proposed.