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2023/4/13

World's First Successful Production of Microalgae Producing Fuel Oil Outside of Cells

Expectations for Reducing Production and Operation Costs for Industrial Applications

TAISEI CORPORATION, Saitama University, Chubu University, and Kazusa DNA Research Institute (all in Japan) have succeeded for the first time in the world in producing microalgae that produce oil, a fuel substance, outside their cells without introducing foreign genes.

The project is part of NEDO's "Development of Production Technologies for Bio-based Products that Accelerate the Realization of Carbon Recycling" project.

By suppressing or enhancing the expression of specific genes in the cyanobacterial strain Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942, a type of microalgae, we have achieved efficient production of free fatty acid (FFA), an intracellular fuel substance, outside the cell. The algae produced in this study are characterized by the following features

(1) It is a non-recombinant organism that does not contain foreign genes,
(2) The ability to easily recover the fuel substance FFA by enhancing the FFA production capacity and improving the ability to rapidly release the produced FFA outside the cell.

In addition, since the cultured algae can be continuously utilized for fuel production, it is expected to reduce costs related to production and operation at the time of industrial use.

In the future, Taisei Corporation and others will work together with NEDO to contribute to the realization of a decarbonized society by improving the FFA production capacity of the algae produced this time, building an algae biofuel production system and conducting demonstration tests, and promoting the diffusion and expansion of algae biofuel.

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