Recent advances in biotechnology

PTT 104: Introduction to BiotechnologyDepartment of Chemical Engineering

Technology, UniMAP.khadijahhanim@unimap.edu.my

New advance in biofuel production

O Biofuel: liquid fuels synthesized from the sugars in cellulosic biomass

O Biofuels offer a clean, green and renewable alternative to gasoline, diesel and jet fuels.

O Major challenge: to bring down the costs of producing biofuels to competitive levels with petrofuels.

Biofuel production: process

Current advance: to eliminate the uses of expensive enzymes after chemical pretreatment

Biofuel production: current advance

O Using ionic liquids (salts that are liquids rather than crystals at room temp.) together with acid catalysts can effectively replace enzyme-based hydrolysis.

O By eliminating the need for enzymes and decreasing the water consumption- should be able to reduce the costs of sugar production from lignocellulose.

New advance: Green batteries from a plant

O The challenge in developing clean energy is to identify sustainable energy supplies and protect the environment.

O Madder plants yield natural cathode.O Currently: lithium batteries operate on

inorganic insertion to power a diverse range of applications. Using non-renewable cathodes like LiCoO2, LiNiO2, etc

New advance: Green batteries from a plant

O Current problems with Li-ion batteries:- Extracting raw materials from ores and

transforming them into electrochemically active materials requires increasing amount of energy as they become scarce.

- Recycling Li-ion batteries is a challenging process- involves elevated temp and liberates high amounts of CO2.

- Therefore, the industry needs more environmental friendly organic electrodes.

New advance: Green batteries from a plant

O Research on using organic electrode has been conducted. Using purpurin which has been extracted from Madder plants.

O The extracted and chemically lithiated purpurin shows a good reversible lithium ion storage properties.

New advance: genetically engineered crops that could

thrive in crowded fieldsO Current problem: global population is

expected to reach to 9 billion by 2050, the world’s farmers are needed to produce a lot more food but without using much more farmland.

O Possible solution: to grow crop more densely in the field thereby increasing yield per acre.

New advance: genetically engineered crops that could thrive in crowded fields

O However, it’s not as easy as just spacing seeds more closely together at planting time.

O Packed too tight: corn plants will grow tall and spindly as they try to compete with neighboring plant for sunlight – shade avoidance.

O Problem with shade avoidance- plants are spending their energy making stems so that they can grow taller instead of making food.

New advance: genetically engineered crops that could

thrive in crowded fieldsO A research team from UW-Madison are

conducting a research to re-engineer a light sensing molecule in plants, to allow plants to grow normally even they’re packed in tight.

O Light sensing molecule- phytochrome.O Phytochrome- the main photoreceptor

that allows plants to tell when the lights are on and off and also allows plants to sense whether its in full sun or being shaded.

New advance: genetically engineered crops that could

thrive in crowded fieldsO The re-engineering involves creating

mutants that are extremely sensitive to lights. These mutants if genetically engineered into crops, could make the plants think that they are getting plenty of light, even when they’re growing on a crowded field.

O Advantage: instead of growing 30 inch rows, this technology could enable us to plant corn in 20-inch rows. Boosting yields by 50%.