Systematic Mining and Evaluation of the Sesquiterpene Skeletons as High Energy Aviation Fuel Molecules

Yanglei Huang; Ziling Ye; Xiukun Wan; Ge Yao; Jingyu Duan; Jiajia Liu; Mingdong Yao; Xiang Sun; Zixin Deng; Kun Shen; Hui Jiang; Tiangang Liu

doi:10.1002/advs.202300889

Systematic Mining and Evaluation of the Sesquiterpene Skeletons as High Energy Aviation Fuel Molecules

Adv Sci (Weinh). 2023 Aug;10(23):e2300889. doi: 10.1002/advs.202300889. Epub 2023 Jun 4.

Authors

Yanglei Huang¹, Ziling Ye¹, Xiukun Wan², Ge Yao², Jingyu Duan¹, Jiajia Liu², Mingdong Yao^{3

4}, Xiang Sun¹, Zixin Deng^{1

5}, Kun Shen¹, Hui Jiang², Tiangang Liu^{1

6}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Combinatorial Biosynthesis and Drug Discovery, Ministry of Education and School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430071, China.
² State Key Laboratory of NBC Protection for Civilian, Beijing, 102205, China.
³ Frontier Science Center for Synthetic Biology and Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (Ministry of Education), School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China.
⁴ Frontier Technology Research Institute, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 301700, China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200030, China.
⁶ Hubei Engineering Laboratory for Synthetic Microbiology, Wuhan Institute of Biotechnology, Wuhan, 430075, China.

Abstract

Sesquiterpenes have been identified as promising ingredients for aviation fuels due to their high energy density and combustion heat properties. Despite the characterization of numerous sesquiterpene structures, studies testing their performance properties and feasibility as fuels are scarce. In this study, 122 sesquiterpenoid skeleton compounds, obtained from existing literature reports, are tested using group contribution and gaussian quantum chemistry methods to assess their potential as high-energy aviation fuels. Seventeen sesquiterpene compounds exhibit good predictive performance and nine compounds are further selected for overproduction in yeast. Through fed-batch fermentation, all compounds achieve the highest reported titers to date. Subsequently, three representative products, pentalenene, presilphiperfol-1-ene, and α-farnesene, are selected, produced, purified in large quantities, and tested for use as potential fuels. The performance of pentalenene, presilphiperfol-1-ene, and their derivatives reveals favorable prospects as high-energy aviation fuels.

Keywords: aviation fuel; evaluation; mining; sesquiterpene.

Abstract

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