LS9: Biofuels that Resemble Petroleum

Biofuel company  LS9 Inc., the Renewable Petroleum Company(TM), is using synthetic biology to produce proprietary biofuels that resemble petroleum — but which are designed to be “renewable, clean, domestically produced, and cost competitive.”  The company said today that it raised $5 million in its first round of venture funding from Flagship Ventures and Khosla Ventures, two early-stage investment firms.

The San Carlos, California company was founded in 2005 by Khosla Ventures, Flagship Ventures, along with two scientists, Chris Somerville, Director of the Carnegie Institution and Professor of Plant Biology at Stanford University, and George Church, Director of the MIT-Harvard US-Dept. of Energy GTL Center and Professor of Genetics at Harvard.

The companies products, currently under development, are designed to closely resemble petroleum derived fuels. Derived from diverse agricultural feedstocks, these high energy liquid fuels are renewable and compatible with current distribution and consumer infrastructure.

LS9 combines core competencies in industrial biotechnology and synthetic biology to design, develop, and commercialize industrial bioprocesses. Industrial biotechnology is the application of biocatalysis for the large scale production of chemical products. Synthetic biology is the state of the art of bioenegineering, and refers to the design, construction, and improvement of biological machines at the molecular genetic level. They have identified the key components of a cost effective process and defined which components are best controlled physically, chemically, and biologically. Bringing experience in industrial biotechnology from Cargill, Codexis, Kosan, Cubist, and Diversa and synthetic biology from Harvard, UC Berkeley, MIT, and Stanford, the LS9 team is uniquely suited to design, develop, and commercialize the next generation of biofuels.

"Thanks to rapid advances in industrial biotechnology and synthetic biology along with the strength and talent of our scientific team, LS9 is uniquely suited to design, develop, and commercialize the next generation of biofuels," said Dr. Somerville.

"We have looked to nature to identify the required biological tools, redesigned them to function under industrial conditions, and are optimizing their performance to meet our economic objectives," added Dr. Church.

Doug Cameron, former head of biotechnology research at Cargill and acting Chief Executive Officer of LS9 Inc., said the advances stand to change the dynamics of the fuel market.

"LS9 is pursuing a disruptive technology in a large established market," Dr. Cameron said. "Our rate of scientific progress is a testament to the quality of the team we have assembled at LS9."

Not much real information about their technology -- If Kholsa and Flagship are backing them they must have something. Seems to me they could give DuPont a run for their money in competition with biobutanol.

Comments

[Bde2200]

That's kinda vague. What are the energy inputs?

[Bde2200]

That's kinda vague. What are the energy inputs?

[GreyFlcn]

What ya bet they are using a gasification process to make their biofuel?

[SGD]

Take a look at their job postings: http://www.ls9.com/careers.htm
It looks like they are working on a microbial fermentation process, probably an alcohol fermentaion from conventional feedstock, with down stream enzymatic modification of the primary alcohol using metaloenzymes. The downstream enzymatic modification would turn alcohols, like butanol (4 carbon), or perhaps a longer chain fermentation alcohol (though I would be hard pressed to come up with an industrial platform for this), into aliphatic straight chain and branched chains of various sizes(5-12 carbons) to produce a product like conventional gasoline. Depending on the chemistry they may keep some of the OH groups on some of the chains (technically no an aliphatic compound) in order to boost oxygen content, and thus reduce unwanted combustion products, such as carbon monoxide. This would reduce the need for oxygenates in the finished fuel.

[David Moreland]

Interesting, but not enough detail to tell if it is a wild goose chase or a real viable alternative. For further discussion of energy alternatives, visit my blog at www.energy-guru.blogspot.com

Energy Guru

[David Moreland]

I certainly do know lots of engineer/project management types with offshore design and construction backgrounds. In fact, as you've apparently guessed, that is my background.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure they'd appreciate having their names sold, so I'll have to decline.

I'm glad you enjoyed my blog, and I hope you'll keep reading as I try to help educate about energy matters from a technical viewpoint.

Energy Guru
www.energy-guru.blogspot.com

[Fran]

Spanish company touts process to turn urban waste into biodiesel
By Ron Kotrba

A group of Spanish developers working under the company name Ecofasa, headed by chief executive officer and inventor Francisco Angulo, has developed a biochemical process to turn urban solid waste into a fatty acid biodiesel feedstock. “It took more than 10 years working on the idea of producing biodiesel from domestic waste using a biological method,” Angulo told Biodiesel Magazine. “My first patent dates back to 2005. It was first published in 2007 in Soto de la Vega, Spain, thanks to the council and its representative Antonio Nevado.”

Using microbes to convert organic material into energy isn’t a new concept to the renewable energy industries, and the same can be said for the anaerobic digestion of organic waste by microbes, which turns waste into biogas consisting mostly of methane. However, using bacteria to convert urban waste to fatty acids, which can then be used as a feedstock for biodiesel production, is a new twist. The Spanish company calls this process and the resulting fuel Ecofa. “It is based on metabolism’s natural principle by means of which all living organisms, including bacteria, produce fatty acids,” Angula said. “[It] comes from the carbon of any organic waste.”

He defined urban waste as “organic wastes from home like food, paper, wood and dung,” and added that any carbon-based material can be used for biodiesel production under the Ecofa process. “For many years, I wondered why there are pools of oil in some mountains,” he said, explaining the reasoning behind his invention. “After delving into the issue, I realized that [those oil deposits] were produced by decomposing organic living microorganisms.” This, in Angulo’s mind, sparked the idea that food waste and bacteria could be turned into fatty acids that could react into biodiesel. Two types of bacteria are under further development by Biotit Scientific Biotechnology Laboratory in Seville, Spain: E. coli and Firmicutes. The Ecofa process also produces methane gas, and inconvertible solids that can be used as a soil amendment or fertilizer. “There is a huge variety of bacteria,” Angulo said. “Currently, [biodiesel producers] receive a fat that must be processed through transesterification into biodiesel, but we are also working on other types of bacteria that are capable of producing fatty acids with the same characteristics as biodiesel.” He said this would eventually allow producers to skip the transesterification step.

Ecofasa may avoid the ongoing food-versus-fuel debate and its expected successor, indirect land use, with its Ecofa process. “It would not be necessary to use specific fields of maize, wheat, barley, beets, etc., which would remain for human consumption without creating distortions or famines with unforeseeable consequences,” the company stated in a press release. “This microbial technique can be extended to other organic debris, plants or animals, such as those contained in urban sewage. You can even experiment with other carbon sources, and this opens up a lot of possibilities. It is only necessary to find the appropriate bacteria.”

The company created its name by combining the term “eco-combustible” with F.A., the initials of the inventor.

“Today we feel that we can produce between one and two liters [of biodiesel] per 10 kilograms of trash,” Angulo said. That’s a little more than one-fourth to one-half of a gallon for every 22 pounds of trash—or between 24 and 48 gallons per ton of urban waste. “We are working to improve that,” he said.

http://www.youtube.com/user/agnux

[Manhattan Air Specialists]

Thanks for the update.the earth is polluted and most natural resources depleted.We have to step up and start making this a better place for all of us.

[Manhattan Air Conditioners AC Units]

Cow dung is a big example of this. Many bacteria are comes in the same category.