Metabolic Engineering for sustainable Bioenergy

Global energy use is growing due to more automation and higher living standards while fossil fuels are still the main energy source, renewable energy and biofuels such as bioethanol, biodiesel, biogas and biomass are becoming more popular (Khalife et al., 2017). Using biofuels instead of some fossil fuels can help reduce greenhouse gases and improve the environment (Hajjari et al., 2017). Biofuels get their energy from sunlight with plants and microorganisms converting carbon dioxide and water into useful chemicals. Some of these chemicals can be directly used as fuel while others need to be processed by microorganisms to make biofuels. Genetic and metabolic engineering can