Combatting Biofuel Toxicity Through Membrane Separation: Improving the Production of Sustainable Aviation Fuels

Aviation fuels are manufactured using petroleum derived chemicals. An alternative is to use microorganisms as biocatalysts to produce biofuels. Such biofuels can either be blended with or replace existing fuels. This offers a route to replace petroleum-derived fuels by fuels obtained from renewable carbon sources. One of the main bottlenecks in the microbial synthesis of sustainable aviation fuels is that the chemicals produced are frequently toxic to the biocatalysts. One approach to overcome this problem is to redesign the bioreactors that are used in their production. We extend a standard bioreactor model to include extraction of the biofuel from the reactor through a membrane. This reduces the concentration of the product within the bioreactor. We investigate how this technology mitigates the adverse effects of end-product toxicity.