http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090108171638.htm
http://tinyurl.com/9pcw7r
" ... what yeast is to the process used to create ethanol,
Clostridium beijerinckii is to the process that results in butanol."
"You can use distiller's grains, biomass, pretty much anything that
can be deconstructed to sugars and can be fermented"
Apparently the capability has been around a while: "When we did the
original study 10 years ago that resulted in the mutant strain, we
didn't do it in a nice, careful way using sophisticated molecular
biology."
However, commercialization is underway: "Because the mutant strain
produces higher concentrations of butanol, it's the basis for
Tetravitae BioSciences, a local company that licensed the patented
strain from the University of Illinois and is scaling up to use the
over-productive strain on a large scale – the size of an ethanol plant."
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
