Mass and energy balance constraints on the biological production of chemicals from coal

Abstract

Several organic chemicals, including methane and ethanol, may be produced by the bioprocessing of coal. This may be done either by direct microbial attack on the coal, or indirectly by the bioprocessing of solubilized coal. As in chemical liquefaction and gasification, the relative amounts of the various products that can be produced are severely constrained by mass and energy balance considerations. The main differences in biological processing are that water is a ubiquitous reactant, carbon dioxide a common product, and that some of the carbon and nitrogen in the coal may go to the synthesis of new biomass rather than products. The conventional biotechnological yield analysis applied to coal processing has several interesting consequences. The mass balance reduces to a balance of available electrons, and coal has a similar oxidation/reduction state to both carbohydrates and biomass. This makes high product yields feasible particularly under anaerobic conditions, although leaving open the question of whether the relevant hydrolase enzymes exist. Recommendations are made on products, and combinations of two products, that may be made with high yields and economic return. The energy balance provides little extra information. A general intracellular energy balance can be written in terms of the production and consumption of ATP, but much of the necessary information on the metabolic pathways is currently not available for coal processing micro-organisms.