Advanced Metabolic Engineering Approaches and Renewable Energy to Improve Environmental Benefits of Algal Biofuels: LCA of Large-scale Biobutanol Production with Cyanobacteria Synechocystis PCC6803
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
Abstract With modern genetic engineering tools, microorganisms can become resilient green cell factories to produce sustainable biofuels directly. Compared to non-engineered algae and cyanobacteria, the photon conversion efficiency can be significantly increased. Furthermore, simplified harvesting processes are feasible since the novel microorganisms are excreting the biofuels or their precursors continuously and directly into the cultivation media. Along with higher productivity and direct product harvesting, it is expected that environmental benefits can be achieved, especially for climate protection. A life cycle assessment (LCA) for biobutanol production with the genetically engineered cyanobacteria Synechocystis PCC6803 is performed to test this hypothesis. A prospective and upscaled approach was applied to assess the environmental impacts at large-scale production (20 ha plant) for better comparability with conventional butanol production. The LCA results show that the engineering of microorganisms can improve the environmental impact, mainly due to the higher productivity compared to non-engineered cyanobacteria. However, the nevertheless high electricity demand required for the cultivation and harvesting process overcompensates this benefit. According to the scenario calculations, a more favourable climate gas balance can be achieved if renewable electricity is used. Then, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to 3.1 kg CO 2 eq/kg biobutanol, corresponding to 20% more than the fossil reference: (2.45 kg CO 2 eq./kg 1-butanol). The results indicate the importance of genetic engineering and the energy transition towards renewable electricity supply to take full advantage of the environmental potential of microorganisms as future green cell factories for sustainable biofuel production. Besides, the necessity of developing different scenarios for perspective and upscaled LCA for a fairer comparison with mature reference technologies is demonstrated.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Large-scale life-cycle modelling of cyanobacterial biobutanol production found that electricity demand for cultivation, mixing, and downstream product purification fully offsets the photosynthetic carbon benefit when conventional grid electricity is used, and even with renewable electricity the resulting greenhouse gas balance was only marginally more favourable than fossil reference values.
“large-scale life-cycle modelling of cyanobacterial biobutanol production found that the electricity demand for these processes fully offsets the photosynthetic carbon benefit when conventional grid electricity is used, and that even with renewable electricity the resulting greenhouse gas balance was only marginally more favourable than fossil reference values [14].”
From Cyanobacteria as a Photosynthetic Chassis for Metabolic Pathway Engineering with Heterologous Gene Expression (2026) · cites this paper as [14]
Split into 2 atoms — 0 confirmed, 1 partially supported, 1 disputed, 0 misattributed, 0 unverifiable. Expand the claim to see per-atom verdicts.
Checked by a reasoning model — may be wrong.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 52 · Cited by 26
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- JRC European Commission (2011) ILCD Handbook: recommen- dations for Life cycle Impact assessment in the european con- text. Publications Office of the European Union, Ispra (2011), 10.2788/33030. Available in: http:// eplca. jrc. ec. europa. eu/ uploa ds/ ILCD-Recom menda tion-of-metho ds-for-LCIA-def. pdf · DOI
- Rösch C, Varela VJ (2021) Perception of EU citizens on engi- neered biocatalytic solar fuels. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 149:1- 13. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1016/j. rser. 2021. 111366 · DOI
- Authors
- Villacreses-Freire, D., Ketzer, F., & Rösch, C.
- Affiliations
- Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Villacreses-Freire, Daniela
- Venue
- BioEnergy Research
- Published
- 2021-10-13
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 1515-1530
- ISSN
- 1939-1234 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1242
- OpenAlex
- W3171186111
- Cited by
- 26
- References
- 52
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 0.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- BioEnergy Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Research Square (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- Repository KITopen (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- KITopen (cc-by)
- Funders
- H2020 European Research Council (640720)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment › Algal biology and biofuel production
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Microbial Metabolic Engineering and Bioproduction
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Environmental Impact and Sustainability
- Keywords
- algal biofuels, biobutanol, Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, cyanobacteria, metabolic engineering, life cycle assessment, greenhouse gas emissions, renewable electricity, mass production, electricity demand
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
