A SYNTHESIS OF BIOREACTIONS FOR THE PRODUCTION OF ETHANOL FROM CO2

An ethanol production system, which is an integrated bioreaction for t he production of ethanol from CO2, was developed. This system consists of biochemical and chemical reaction processes for the following: (i) photosynthetic CO2 fixation and biomass production of cyanobacterium Synechococcus leopoliensis, (ii) HCl-catalyzed saccharification of cya nobacterial biomass to glucose, and (iii) ethanol fermentation of yeas t Saccharomyces sake using glucose, which is extracted from cyanobacte rial biomass as the substrate. We successfully converted the CO2-deriv ed glucose to ethanol using this system, which also enhanced the activ ities of S. sake for glucose consumption and for ethanol production.