Abstract
China initiated its acetone–butanol–ethanol (ABE) industry in the 1950s; it peaked in the 1980s, and ended at the end of the last century owing to the development of more competitive petrochemical pathways. However, driven by the high price of crude oil and environmental concerns raised by the over-consumption of petrochemical products, biofuels and bio-based chemicals including butanol have garnered global attention again. Currently, butanol produced from ABE fermentation is mainly used as an industrial solvent or a platform chemical for several bulk derivatives, and is also believed to be a potential biofuel. A number of plants have been built or rebuilt in recent years in China for butanol production with the ABE process. Chinese researchers also show great interest in the improvement of the production strains and corresponding processes. They have applied conventional mutagenesis methods to improve butanol-producing strains such as the Clostridium acetobutylicum mutant strains EA2018 (butanol ratio of 70%) and Rh8 (butanol tolerance of 19 g/L). The omics technologies, such as genome sequencing, proteomic and transcriptomic analysis, have been adapted to elucidate the characteristics of different butanol-producing bacteria. Based on the group II intron method, the genetic manipulation system of C. acetobutylicum was greatly improved, and some successful engineering strains were developed. In addition, research in China also covers the downstream processes. This article reviews up-to-date progress on biobutanol production in China.
Keywords
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Alsaker KV, Papoutsakis ET (2005) Transcriptional program of early sporulation and stationary-phase events in Clostridium acetobutylicum. J Bacteriol 187:7103–7118
Alsaker KV, Spitzer TR, Papoutsakis ET (2004) Transcriptional analysis of spo0A overexpression in Clostridium acetobutylicum and its effect on the cell’s response to butanol stress. J Bacteriol 186:1959–1971
Bao G, Wang R, Zhu Y et al (2011) Complete genome sequence of Clostridium acetobutylicum DSM 1731, a solvent producing strain with multi-replicon genome architecture. J Bacteriol:doi:10.1128/JB.05596-11
Bowles LK, Ellefson WL (1985) Effects of butanol on Clostridium acetobutylicum. Appl Environ Microbiol 50(5):1165–1170
Chen L, Xin C, Deng P et al (2010) Butanol production from hydrolysate of Jerusalem artichoke juice by Clostridium acetobutylicum L7. Chin J Biotechnol 26(7):991–996
Chiao J, Cheng Y, Shen Y et al (1960) Studies on the continuous acetone-butanol fermentation. Acta Microbiol Sin 10:137–148
Chiao J, Sun Z (2007) History of the acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation industry in China: development of continuous production technology. J Mol Microbiol Biotechnol 13:12–14
Desai R, Papoutsakis E (1999) Antisense RNA strategies for metabolic engineering of Clostridium acetobutylicum. Appl Environ Microbiol 65:936–945
Dong H, Tao W, Zhu L et al (2011) CAC2634-disrupted mutant of Clostridium acetobutylicum can be electrotransformed in air. Lett Appl Microbiol 53(3):379-82.doi:10.1111/j.1472-765X.2011.03111.x
Dong H, Zhang Y, Dai Z et al (2010) Engineering Clostridium strain to accept unmethylated DNA. PLoS One 5(2):e9038
Dyr J, Munk V (1954) Biosynthesis of riboflavin by Clostridium acetobutylicum. Chekhoslovatskaia Biol 3(1):23–29
Fan J, Feng W, Di S et al (2010) Production of butanol from sugar beet molasses by fed-batch fermentation. Chin J Bioprocess Eng 8:6–9
Green EM (2011) Fermentative production of butanol–the industrial perspective. Curr Opin Biotech 22:337–343
Green EM, Boynton ZL, Harris LM et al (1996) Genetic manipulation of acid formation pathways by gene inactivation in Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824. Microbiology 142:2079–2086
Gu Y, Ding Y, Ren C et al (2010) Reconstruction of xylose utilization pathway and regulons in Firmicutes. BMC Genomics 11(1):255
Gu Y, Li J, Zhang L et al (2009) Improvement of xylose utilization in Clostridium acetobutylicum via expression of the talA gene encoding transaldolase from Escherichia coli. J Biotechnol 143(4):284–287
Harris LM, Welker NE, Papoutsakis ET (2002) Northern, morphological, and fermentation analysis of spo0A inactivation and overexpression in Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824. J Bacteriol 184(13):3586–3597
Heap JT and Minton NP (2009) Methods. PCT/GB2009/000380
Heap JT, Pennington OJ, Cartman ST et al (2007) The ClosTron: a universal gene knock-out system for the genus Clostridium. J Microbiol Methods 70(3):452–464
Ho NW, Chen Z, Brainard AP (1998) Genetically engineered Saccharomyces yeast capable of effective cofermentation of glucose and xylose. Appl Environ Microbiol 64:1852–1859
Hu C, Du Y, Yang Y (2007) Preliminary study on coupling between biodiesels and acetone-butanol fermentation. Chin J Process Eng 5(1):27–33
Hu S, Zheng H, Gu Y et al (2011) Comparative genomic and transcriptomic analysis revealed genetic characteristics related to solvent formation and xylose utilization in Clostridium acetobutylicum EA 2018. BMC Genomics 12:1471–2164
Jia K, Zhu Y, Zhang Y et al (2011) Group II intron-anchored gene deletion in Clostridium. PLoS One 6(1):e16693
Jiang Y, Xu C, Dong F et al (2009) Disruption of the acetoacetate decarboxylase gene in solvent-producing Clostridium acetobutylicum increases the butanol ratio. Metab Eng 11:284–291
Jones DT, Keis S (1995) Origins and relationships of industrial solvent-producing clostridial strains. FEMS Microbiol Rev 17(3):223–232
Jones DT, Woods DR (1986) Acetone-butanol fermentation revisited. Microbiol Rev 50(4):484–524
Karberg M, Guo H, Zhong J et al (2001) Group II introns as controllable gene targeting vectors for genetic manipulation of bacteria. Nat Biotechnol 19(12):1162–1167
Lütke-Eversloh T, Bahl H (2011) Metabolic engineering of Clostridium acetobutylicum: recent advances to improve butanol production. Curr Opin Biotechnol 22:634–647
Lee SY, Park JH, Jang SH et al (2008) Fermentative butanol production by clostridia. Biotechnol Bioeng 101(2):209–228
Li D, Chen H (2007) Fermentation of acetone and butanol coupled with enzymatic hydrolysis of steam exploded cornstalk stover in a membrane reactor. Chin J Process Eng 7(6):1212–1216
Liu S, Qureshi N (2009) Proteome analysis and comparison of Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824 and Spo0A strain variants. New Biotechnol 26:117–121
Liu Z, Ying Y, Li F et al (2010) Butanol production by Clostridium beijerinckii ATCC 55025 from wheat bran. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 37(5):495–501
Luo J, Yi S, Su Y et al (2010) Separation and concentration of butanol from acetone-butanol-ethanol mixed solution by pervaporation. Chem Eng 38(2):43–46
Mao S, Luo Y, Bao G et al (2011) Comparative analysis on the membrane proteome of Clostridium acetobutylicum wild type strain and its butanol-tolerant mutant. Mol BioSyst 7:1660–1677
Mermelstein LD, Welker NE, Bennett GN et al (1992) Expression of cloned homologous fermentative genes in Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824. Biotechnology (NY) 10(2):190–195
Mills DA, Manias DA, McKay LL et al (1997) Homing of a group II intron from Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis ML3. J Bacteriol 179(19):6107
Mitchell WJ (1998) Physiology of carbohydrate to solvent conversion by clostridia. Adv Microb Physiol 39:31–130
Ni Y, Sun Z (2009) Recent progress on industrial fermentative production of acetone-butanol-ethanol by Clostridium acetobutylicum in China. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 83(3):415–423
Nolling J, Breton G, Omelchenko M et al (2001) Genome sequence and comparative analysis of the solvent-producing bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum. J Bacteriol 183:4823–4838
Ounine K, Petitdemange H, Raval G et al (1985) Regulation and butanol inhibition of D-xylose and d-glucose uptake in Clostridium acetobutylicum. Appl Environ Microbiol 49:874–878
Qureshi N, Ezeji TC, Ebener J et al (2008) Butanol production by Clostridium beijerinckii. Part I: Use of acid and enzyme hydrolyzed corn fiber. Bioresour Technol 99(13):5915–5922
Qureshi N, Saha BC, Cotta MA (2007) Butanol production from wheat straw hydrolysate using Clostridium beijerinckii. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 30(6):419–427
Ren C, Gu Y, Hu S et al (2010) Identification and inactivation of pleiotropic regulator CcpA to eliminate glucose repression of xylose utilization in Clostridium acetobutylicum. Metab Eng 12:446–454
Rodriguez SA, Davis G, Klose KE (2009) Targeted gene disruption in Francisella tularensis by group II introns. Methods 49(3):270–274
Shao L, Hu S, Yang Y et al (2007) Targeted gene disruption by use of a group II intron (targetron) vector in Clostridium acetobutylicum. Cell Res 17:963–965
Soucaille P, Figge R, Croux C (2008) Process for chromosomal integration and DNA sequence replacement in clostridia. PCT/EP2006/066997
Tomas CA, Beamish J, Papoutsakis ET (2004) Transcriptional analysis of butanol stress and tolerance in Clostridium acetobutylicum. J Bacteriol 186(7):2006–2018
Tummala SB, Welker NE, Papoutsakis ET (2003) Design of antisense RNA constructs for downregulation of the acetone formation pathway of Clostridium acetobutylicum. J Bacteriol 185(6):1923–1934
Vollherbst-Schneck K, Sands J, Montenecourt B (1984) Effect of butanol on lipid composition and fluidity of Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824. Appl Environ Microbiol 47(1):193–194
Wang S, Zhang Y, Dong H et al (2011) Formic acid triggers the “acid crash” of acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation by Clostridium acetobutylicum. Appl Environ Microbiol 77(5):1674–1680
Yang X, Tsai GJ, Tsao GT (1994) Enhancement of in situ adsorption on the acetone-butanol fermentation by Clostridium acetobutylicum. Sep Tectmol 4(2):81–92
Yang X, Tsao GT (1995) Enhanced acetone-butanol fermentation using repeated fed-batch operation coupled with cell recycle by membrane and simultaneous removal of inhibitory products by adsorption. Biotechnol Bioeng 47:444–450
Zhang Y, Chen J, Yang Y et al (1996) Breeding high-ratio butanol strains of Clostridium acetobutylicum and application to industrial production. Indust Microbiol 26:1–6
Zhang Y, Chen J, Yang Y et al (1996) Breeding of high-ratio butanol strains of Clostridicum acetobutylicum and application to industrial production. Ind Microbiol 26(4):1–6
Zhang Y, Zhu Y, Li Y (2009) The importance of engineering physiological functionality into microbes. Trends Biotechnol 27(12):664–672
Zhou H, Su Y, Yi S et al (2010) Effect of acetone and ethanol on pervaporation separation of butanol. CIESC J 61(5):1143–1150
Zhu L, Dong H, Zhang Y et al (2011) Engineering the robustness of Clostridium acetobutylicum by introducing glutathione biosynthetic capability. Metab Eng 13:426–434
Zverlov VV, Berezina O, Velikodvorskaya GA et al (2006) Bacterial acetone and butanol production by industrial fermentation in the Soviet Union: use of hydrolyzed agricultural waste for biorefinery. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol Bioeng 71:587–597
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dong, H. et al. (2011). Biobutanol. In: Bai, FW., Liu, CG., Huang, H., Tsao, G. (eds) Biotechnology in China III: Biofuels and Bioenergy. Advances in Biochemical Engineering Biotechnology, vol 128. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/10_2011_128
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/10_2011_128
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-28477-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-28478-6
eBook Packages: Chemistry and Materials ScienceChemistry and Material Science (R0)