In this industry, substrates such as corn or sugarcane are fermented by yeast in order to make ethanol to be used as fuel. Although a promising source of renewable energy, this process is not without its challenges.

While the fuel ethanol industry is mature and produces approximately 25 billion gallons of renewable fuel per year worldwide, there is constant pressure to find new ways of optimizing production. Of course, an important way of achieving this goal is to reduce or eliminate the limitations on the process imposed by the yeasts themselves. Such limitations include:

– Poor heat and acid tolerance

– Reliance on the need to add expensive enzymes

– Poor tolerance to high ethanol titers

In short, BioTork is striving to improve the yeasts used in the creation of fuel ethanol in order to make the production of this renewable energy more cost-efficient, therefore encouraging its use over that of non-renewable fossil fuel.