Fermentative production of butanol—the industrial perspective

A sustainable bacterial fermentation route to produce biobutanol is poised for re-commercialization. Today, biobutanol can compete with synthetic butanol in the chemical market. Biobutanol is also a superior biofuel and, in longer term, can make an important contribution towards the demand for next generation biofuels. There is scope to improve the conventional fermentation process with solventogenic clostridia and drive down the production cost of 1-butanol by deploying recent advances in biotechnology and engineering. This review describes re-commercialization efforts and highlights developments in feedstock utilization, microbial strain development and fermentation process development, all of which significantly impact production costs.

Research highlights
► Biobutanol is an important renewable chemical building block and a superior next generation biofuel.
► Production of 1-butanol using solventogenic clostridia is a proven industrial fermentation that has been re-commercialised in China.
► Significant reductions in production cost can be achieved using low cost cellulosic feedstocks. Choice of microbial strain is critical to the success of the fermentation.
► Future work should focus on robust strains that can tolerate high solvent concentrations and feedstock inhibitors.