Microbial production of lipids (biofuel) from hydrolyzed bagasse of sugar cane

• Grant number: 07/01098-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: August 01, 2008
• End date: October 31, 2008
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Chemical Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Telma Teixeira Franco
• Grantee: Saartje Hernalsteens
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Engenharia Química (FEQ). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Since the 80’s interest in microbial lipids has been renewed because of an urgent need for prudent utilization of alternative renewable resources as carbon for production of lipids and because of some new practical applications of microbial lipids. There is currently great interest in the production of fuels with microbial systems.Less attention has been paid to microbial oil as fuels, but the works on seed oils as diesel fuel substitutes supports the idea that biological lipid reserves (triglycerides) could offer an attractive alternate fuel source. While the inedible portion of the plant currently has no defined uses, it represents a renewable resource of fixed carbon and chemical energy that could become an important resource for production of microbial oil and thus fuels. In this present research proposal we will study the production of lipids by yeasts from sugar cane bagasse, to be later used as biofuels (2nd. generation biofuels). This project is a part of a bigger research, that began at 2002 at the Bichemical engineering laboratory with the coordenation of Prof. Telma Teixeira and the colaboration of "Shel Global Solutions". The first step of this study is to select the best organism, and it will go through the study of kinetics parameters and process optimization.