Perspective on Industrial Biofuel Manufacturing: A Continuous Industrial Platform for Co‐production of Biofuels and Valuable Bioproducts Using Clostridia

Since the early 1900s, the genus Clostridium has been the source of important industrial microbes possessing complex traits such as solvent production, gas fermentation, and lignocellulose breakdown. To fully exploit these properties, genomic-based approaches are being undertaken to develop economically viable production systems for renewable biofuels and bioproducts using Clostridium cultures. Their exceptional substrate diversity, including conversion of first-generation biomass crops, second-generation lignocellulosic biomass, and third-generation C1 gases (CO 2 /H 2 or CO) into high-value bioproducts, is enhanced by their ability to produce a broad spectrum of chemicals used as precursors to or directly as biofuels and industrial biochemicals. Recent efforts to metabolically engineer Clostridia highlight their potential for biofuel and biorefinery applications. However, enzyme costs remain high, cellulase activity and stability are low, lignin inhibits enzymatic activity, and some sugars are not utilized. A profitable and sustainable industrial platform can be designed employing Clostridia capable of converting CO and CO 2 /H 2 from non-food biomass, preferably waste materials or polluting gases, in large-scale fermentation to continuously produce biofuels and valuable bioproducts. The platform can be powered by thermopyrolysis of lignocellulosic waste materials to generate syngas composed of C1 compounds for growth of Clostridia to produce ethanol for electricity locally to run an automated process synthesizing large-scale reusable DNA templates to express large amounts of valuable peptides and enzymes using the clostridial bacterial extract.