Researchers have found that seawater can replace freshwater to produce the sustainable fuel Bioethanol, reducing the need to drain precious resources.
The study — ‘The establishment of a marine focused biorefinery for bioethanol production using seawater and a novel marine yeast strain’ — has been published in Scientific Reports and was carried out by researchers at the University of Nottingham. Their results showed that seawater can be used in Bioethanol production along with a new strain of marine based yeast.
Dr. Abdelrahman Zaky, a microbiologist in the School of Biosciences said: “The main purpose of marine fermentation is to introduce an alternative source of water and biomass for industrial biotechnology to reduce pressure on use of freshwater and arable land, allowing these resources to be dedicated to production of food and feeds reducing production costs. Marine fermentation is the approach where seawater, marine biomass and marine microorganisms are used in the fermentation process.
Seawater is a freely available and plentiful resource, and contains a spectrum of minerals, some of which must be added to freshwater. The fermentation process using seawater also produces salt and freshwater as bi-products adding to economic benefits of the process.
Date: August 21, 2018
Image: Google Images
Coordinator: EnvGuide Team (Jiongwen Chen, Yuxin Zhang, Xuhui Zeng)
Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180821125451.htm