Biomolecular Separations Research Group

​Cell-free production of valuable molecules is an exciting recent development. We focus here on biofuel production, a critical area of research for both a sustainable and a green future. The most popular approach for current biofuel production relies on fermentation and bioseparation. This procedure is limited by the toxicity of biofuels on cell viability and hence productivity. To avoid this, we have developed a cell-free system that can convert ketoisovaleric acid to isobutanol. Utilizing purified, mutant enzymes from different microbial sources, an optimized immobilized reaction was run. Immobilized reactions are favored for these processes as they better facilitate separation of the biofuel product from the reaction broth. Current research focus is on designing a separation scheme for the system and optimizing the enzymes further to improve yield.