Improvement of butanol tolerance anaerobic bacterium for biobutanol production

Nowadays, alternative biofuels are gaining interest and studies. One of them is bio-butanol, it is not only biofuel but also be applied in a variety of industries, for example as a precursor to plastic industry, automobile industry, paint industry, etc., especially for use as a solvent in various production processes as well as being used as a mixture of gasoline instead of ethanol. By considering all renewable fuels, bio-butanol plays an important role in the next generation of biofuels. Many studies report that the costly chemical precursor to butanol production. It affects production costs and cost-effectiveness. Therefore, the industry turned to the biological process for butanol production, which is expected to increase butanol utilization in near future. As we know, butanol production by the biological process is anaerobic fermentation such as Clostridium acetobutylicum or Clostridium beijerinckii. However, a barrier to biological processes is the toxicity of butanol to bacterial cells. This is a classic obstacle that limitations of biological butanol production. Consequently, many researchers have developed high potential bacteria for butanol to overcome this limitation, e.g., developing butanol-resistant strains to produce butanol by genetic editing. However, it is found that not so stable for increasing biobutanol production because some gene modification is rejected by host cells. Therefore, this obstacle has a gap and is necessary to improve. It seems like discovering microbial strains that can tolerate and produce biobutanol still needs. In this research, aims to development of bacterial strains that are capable of producing high butanol with more butanol resistance using an adaptation technique. The bacterial strains that have ability to produce butanol, are chosen for strain improvement. Those strains provide by Center for Enzyme Technology and Microbial Utilization Collection Culture, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi.  The improvement strain will be used as a prototype bacterium for butanol production via a biological process.