Global Bioenergies produces butadiene through biological process

French firm Global Bioenergies has successfully produced bio-sourced butadiene by direct fermentation. It is the first time ever an entirely biological production process - ie without any chemical step - is reported for butadiene, one of the most important petrochemical building blocks with a world-wide market of over 10 million metric tonnes per year.
 
As of today, butadiene is exclusively obtained from fossil resources, principally through extraction from naphtha cracking. Given the decrease in naphtha cracking capacities, there is a need for alternative routes to butadiene. In this context Global Bioenergies had signed in 2011 a collaboration agreement with Synthos, the Poland-based manufacturer of butadiene-derived rubber products, to develop a direct fermentation route allowing a cost-effective transformation of renewable resources into butadiene. Since such a direct biological route does not exist in nature, Global Bioenergies first had to invent a new metabolic pathway comprised of a series of non-natural enzymatic reactions. This step was successfully achieved in December 2012.
 
The next step consisted in improving the activity of those enzymes and implementing them into a bacterial strain.
 
Global Bioenergies has now announced that it has created such a proprietary production strain. This strain was placed in a lab-scale fermentation device, and upon the addition of glucose, the presence of butadiene in the off-gases was detected. This is the first time ever that the production of butadiene by direct fermentation from renewable resources has been reported.
 
Frederic Paques, Chief Technology Officer, Global Bioenergies, commented, “We now have in our hands a prototype process for the direct biological conversion of renewable resources into butadiene. We expect that this butadiene program will deploy in the next years as did our isobutene process, our most mature asset now operated in an industrial pilot. Direct fermentation of butadiene has major inherent advantages translating into better economics. We expect to demonstrate these in an industrial environment in the next few years.”