title: One hundred years of clostridial butanol fermentation.
abstract: Butanol has been widely used as an important industrial solvent and feedstock for chemical production. Also, its superior fuel properties compared with ethanol make butanol a good substitute for gasoline. Butanol can be efficiently produced by the genus Clostridium through the acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation, one of the oldest industrial fermentation processes. Butanol production via industrial fermentation has recently gained renewed interests as a potential solution to increasing pressure of climate change and environmental problems by moving away from fossil fuel consumption and moving toward renewable raw materials. Great advances over the last 100 years are now reviving interest in bio-based butanol production. However, several challenges to industrial production of butanol still need to be overcome, such as overall cost competitiveness and development of higher performance strains with greater butanol tolerance. This minireview revisits the past 100 years of remarkable achievements made in fermentation technologies, product recovery processes, and strain development in clostridial butanol fermentation through overcoming major technical hurdles.
authors.affiliation: Metabolic and Biomolecular Engineering National Research Laboratory, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (BK21 Plus Program), Center for Systems and Synthetic Biotechnology, Institute for the BioCentury, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technololgy (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Hyeon Gi
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Moon
authors.affiliation: Metabolic and Biomolecular Engineering National Research Laboratory, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (BK21 Plus Program), Center for Systems and Synthetic Biotechnology, Institute for the BioCentury, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technololgy (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea BioProces Engineering Research Center, KAIST, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Yu-Sin
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Jang
authors.affiliation: Metabolic and Biomolecular Engineering National Research Laboratory, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (BK21 Plus Program), Center for Systems and Synthetic Biotechnology, Institute for the BioCentury, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technololgy (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Changhee
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.affiliation: Metabolic and Biomolecular Engineering National Research Laboratory, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (BK21 Plus Program), Center for Systems and Synthetic Biotechnology, Institute for the BioCentury, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technololgy (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea BioProces Engineering Research Center, KAIST, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Joungmin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Metabolic and Biomolecular Engineering National Research Laboratory, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (BK21 Plus Program), Center for Systems and Synthetic Biotechnology, Institute for the BioCentury, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technololgy (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Binkley
authors.affiliation: Metabolic and Biomolecular Engineering National Research Laboratory, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (BK21 Plus Program), Center for Systems and Synthetic Biotechnology, Institute for the BioCentury, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technololgy (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea BioProces Engineering Research Center, KAIST, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea Bioinformatics Research Center, KAIST, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea leesy@kaist.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Sang Yup
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D000440:Butanols / Q000378:metabolism*; D003013:Clostridium / Q000378:metabolism*; D005285:Fermentation; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D007218:Industrial Microbiology / Q000266:history* / Q000639:trends
chemical_list: D000440:Butanols
keywords: 100 years; ABE; Clostridium; butanol; fermentation; solvent