EASEL creates cutting-edge, sustainable platform technologies through the science of metabolic engineering.
Metabolic engineering –various methods of optimally regulating naturally occurring cell processes to harvest desired yields—is a widely practiced science that contributes to the mass manufacturing of countless goods— beer, wine, cheese, pharmaceuticals, and other biotechnology products, to call attention to a select few.
Applying a like-minded approach to energy production, EASEL engineers are pioneering technologies and processes that transform waste streams and renewable resources into the very fuels and chemicals that make everyday life possible.Our innovative metabolic engineering strategies have transformed single cell organisms into efficient, effective, and cost-competitive factories of industry, able to thrive on a variety of renewable feedstocks. .
To review two of the several proprietary fermentation-based platforms under development:
(1) EASEL’s engineered photosynthetic microorganism generates long chain alcohols directly from carbon dioxide. The longer the chain, the more energy dense the fuel. While gasoline has up to 10 carbon atoms, other common fuels such as ethanol/methane, ethanol/ethane, propanol/propane, butanol/butane respectively have 1, 2, 3, and 4 carbon atoms.
EASEL’s bioprocess, by contrast, engineers bacteria capable of producing chains 8 carbon atoms long.
If 60 billion gallons of higher alcohols were used each year as chemical feedstocks and fuel —replacing 25 percent of gasoline—EASEL technology could eliminate approximately 500 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, or roughly 8.3 percent of the total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.
(2)EASEL’s electrofuel fermentation platform, winner of the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award, converts electricity to liquid biofuels. Using electricity instead of sunlight for biological carbon dioxide fixation and fuel synthesis, our process repurposes carbon dioxide for use as a liquid fuel and a high octane gasoline substitute.