Gina Vazquez

Date of Award

2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Natural Sciences

First Advisor

Oberle, Brad

Area of Concentration

Biology and Environmental Studies

Abstract

Globally people are working towards creating and implementing methods to reduce human-induced climate change. The US has a particularly large responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because it is the second leading emitter globally. Being one of the largest consumers of fossil fuels and greenhouse emitters in the world, it’s important to identify the sector that contributes most to climate change, how it affects climate change, and what solutions exists to reduce emissions within that industry. Part 1, identifies that the transportation sector is responsible for the highest consumption of fossil fuels and highest greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists have been well aware of the harmful consequences of fossil fuels and as a result have been developing biofuels for over 40 years. Biofuels cannot be used to decarbonize the entire transportations sector but with further research, second generation microalgae biofuels can be used in place of fossil fuels for the aviation industry and heavy-industry manufacturing. In Part 2, a protein fusion with decarboxylase OleT and Superoxide Reductase is constructed and optimized with cleavable linker HRV3C. Currently, platinum or palladium is used in decarboxylating fatty acids in microalgae biofuel production. This catalyst is expensive, inefficient in large-scale manufacturing, and has a fast lifecycle. The constructed and optimized protein fusion can be used as a replacement for the metal catalysts currently used with further research and optimization.

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