Studies on the Biocatalytic Desulfurization of Diesel: Phase I

"The increasing global human population has been associated with the development of high-density urban communities. This has lead to increase in fossil energy consumption and, consequently, posed serious threats to the environment and human health. Organosulfur compounds found in crude oil and transportation fuels such as diesel have gained strong attention because they are hazardous to human and the ecosystem.

Moreover, the sulfur oxide gases resulting from fuel combustion are a major cause of acid rain. Governments and environmental organizations worldwide have recognized the problem and implemented strict regulations and legislations that limit the amount of sulfur in diesel. Hydrodesulphurization (HDS) is commonly used by oil refineries to reduce sulfur content in petroleum and refined products. However, HDS has many disadvantages. It is cost-intensive, environmentally polluting, and not sufficiently efficient. Accordingly, there has been increasing interest in the development of alternative desulfurization technologies circumvent the problems associated with the conventional HDS.

Microbial desulfurization or biodesulfurization (BDS) has been proposed as an alternative or a complement technology to overcome the drawbacks of the conventional HDS. BDS exploits the ability of dedicated microorganisms to remove sulfur from many organosulfur compounds that are commonly found in crude oil and its products. As compared to chemical technologies like HDS, biocatalytic processes are environmentally friendly, cost-effective, and specific.

The aim of the project is to screen environmental samples for novel biodesulfurization biocatalysts. Furthermore, we apply metabolomics and proteomics to better understand the physiology and sulfur metabolism of biodesulfurization-competent bacteria. The scientific approach includes the application of advanced techniques of microbiology, biochemistry and molecular biology. Culture-independent techniques and metagenomics will be applied to explore the vast unculturable bacterial diversity."