Biofuel from Stomach Bugs

Researchers are transforming gut microbes into biodiesel-making factories.

Someday you might fill up your vehicle with fuel produced by bacteria. Researchers have engineered E. coli bacteria to convert sugar into hydrocarbons identical to the conventional diesel that powers big trucks and machines.

Currently, made from corn or sugarcane must be mixed with regular gas, or engines must be modified to run on it if the blend is below 20 percent biofuel.

鈥淭he biofuel we made could be used directly, without retrofitting engines or mixing,鈥 says John Love, a synthetic biologist from the in England, whose work is published in  

There are considerable technical hurdles to overcome. Love鈥檚 team is fine-tuning the stomach bugs to transform them into industrial-scale fuel-making factories, for instance.

And there鈥檚 the question of what to feed the bacteria. Love and colleagues plan to investigate whether the gut microbes could convert or human waste, rather than sugar, into fuel.

鈥淚deally,鈥 he says, 鈥渢hey鈥檇 feed off something that nobody wants to produce something that everybody wants.鈥

 

A version of this story that ran in the July-August 2013 issue was titled 鈥淲asteful Driving.鈥