Abstract
Rising costs of fossil resources and products based
thereupon has launched a large-scale interest in
processing green biomass into raw materials for the
chemical industry. The biorefinery uses microorganisms to
convert lignocellulosic feeds into valuable platform
chemicals. Yet, few organisms produce the desired
intermediates and none in suitable amounts. Metabolic
engineering is thus needed. The biochemical systems are,
however, rich in chemical species and contain many
distinct compartments, which mean that tedious and slow
experimental work would be required to evaluate the
molecular reaction mechanisms and their kinetic
parameters. A computational approach may provide a
realistic alternative. We propose a new method for
analysis of biochemical pathways. The novel method uses
modern thermodynamics based on multicomponent multiphase
Gibbs energy minimization with kinetic constraints for
assessing the thermodynamic feasibility. The calculations
can be performed in an adjustable level of detail. The
tool will help reduce the number of experiments needed to
achieve metabolic engineering goals.
Original language | English |
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Publication status | Published - 2009 |
MoE publication type | Not Eligible |
Event | 19th European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering, ESCAPE-19 - Cracow, Poland Duration: 14 Jun 2009 → 17 Jun 2009 |
Conference
Conference | 19th European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering, ESCAPE-19 |
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Abbreviated title | ESCAPE-19 |
Country | Poland |
City | Cracow |
Period | 14/06/09 → 17/06/09 |
Keywords
- Biorefineries
- Metabolic networks
- Gibbs energy