CAS Achieves Progress in Manufacturing Butanol Biologically    

Presently, butanol is regarded as an innocent bio fuel with potential, given the rapid depletion of fossil energies. The production of acetone and butanol through fermentation had ever been the second largest fermentation industry worldwide. With the increasing crude oil price and extensive energy and resources, the butanol fermentation again faces a good opportunity.
   The Research Institute of Microbiology of China Academy of Science (CAS) has done four years research on key technologies of manufacturing butanol through biological method and achieved important progress.
   CAS reported that it screened out high yield clostridiums by means of a high pass screening technology that can make researchers know the growing status and solvent production per strain in five hours. CAS has filed patent for this screening technology in China.  
   CAS research team has modified butanol/acetone clostridium by eliminating activity of constrain genes. The modified clostridiums is able to efficiently accept outside DNA without any modification.
  Four other key innovations include
  * improving the yielding rate of butanol by weeding the genes to make acetone;
  * checking out 20% of proteins in the butanol/acetone clostridium by the 2-DE and MALDI-TOF-TOF technologies;
  * raising the butanol yield by improving the butanol/acetone clostridium's tolerance to butanol;
  * developing HTPB-PU membrane and PDMS/PVDF composite membrane to separate the fermentation solution.
   CAS licensed its technologies to Jiangsu Jinmaoyuan Biochemical Co Ltd in 2009 to construct a 60 000 t/a butanol/acetone industrial demonstrative project in Ganyu county of Jiangsu province. It also sold the microbial strains to Henan Tianguan Group Co Ltd for the cooperative research of fermentation technology to make butanol.