Global Bioenergies finds butadiene breakthrough

Global Bioenergies has succeeded in the production of bio-sourced butadiene by direct fermentation, the group announced on Thursday. 

It is the first time ever an entirely biological production process -- i.e. without any chemical step -- is reported for butadiene, one of the most important petrochemical building blocks.

In this context, Global Bioenergies had signed in 2011, a collaboration agreement with Synthos, to develop a direct fermentation route allowing a cost-effective transformation of renewable resources into butadiene.

Since such a direct biological route does not exist in nature, Global Bioenergies first had to invent a new metabolic pathway comprised of a series of non-natural enzymatic reactions. This step was successfully achieved in December 2012.

The next step consisted in improving the activity of those enzymes and implementing them into a bacterial strain.

Global Bioenergies says it has now created such a proprietary production strain. This strain was placed in a lab-scale fermentation device, and upon the addition of glucose, the presence of butadiene in the off-gases was detected.

This is the first time ever that the production of butadiene by direct fermentation from renewable resources has been reported.

“We now have in our hands a prototype process for the direct biological conversion of renewable resources into butadiene," said Frederic Paques, chief technology officer of Global Bioenergies. "Direct fermentation of butadiene has major inherent advantages translating into better economics. We expect to demonstrate these in an industrial environment in the next few years.”