Bacterium breaks down furans

However, the sugars found in wood in the form of lignocelluloses are not naturally well digested by the micro-organisms that convert biomass into usable raw materials. First, these complex sugars have to be released and broken down into digestible units. This process gives rise to harmful by-products, including furans, which can have a strong inhibiting effect on the fermentation process.

Now, researchers from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have make a significant leap forward in the production of biochemicals and biofuels from waste wood.

Frank Koopman and Nick Wierckx discovered that the bacterium Cupriavidus basilensis is capable of breaking down furans into harmless waste products, while leaving the wood sugars untouched. Together with their supervisors, Koopman and Wierckx unlocked the secrets of the entire degradation process in the bacterium, identifying the genes and enzymes involved.

In addition, they succeeded in introducing this entire degradation process into another bacterium - Pseudomonas putida - which is frequently used in industrial biotechnology and which is not naturally capable of breaking down furans.

Supervisor Han de Winde, professor of industrial microbiology at Delft University of Technology’s Biotechnology Department, said: ’The fact that we now have a process for breaking down furans, not to mention one that can be successfully incorporated into other organisms, paves the way for removing these kinds of compounds during the production of second-generation chemicals and fuels from waste wood. This enables us to avoid the costly and environmentally unfriendly methods that are currently used to remove furans. That makes using wood waste as a sustainable raw material a much more attractive proposition.’

The research by Koopman, Wierckx, Ruijssenaars and De Winde forms part of the B-BASIC consortium. B-BASIC (which stands for Bio-based Sustainable Industrial Chemistry) is an NWO-ACTS research consortium in which Dutch universities and research institutes collaborate with industrial partners. The programme is geared towards developing concepts for the sustainable production of energy and chemicals.