Unceasing Innovation: Yeast Suppliers to the Ethanol Sector

by Luke Geiver (Ethanol Producer Magazine) Yeast suppliers to the ethanol sector have steadily released new and improved products to better match the needs and wants of the industry. Using third-party yeast developers capable of selecting, testing or altering strains with cutting-edge research and modification technology, some of the big names in ethanol yeast supply continue to enhance their offerings, giving producers a lot to consider.

Novonesis: Ever Expanding
Global enzyme and yeast provider Novonesis offers 11 yeast products for ethanol production through its Innova platform. Producers can select products for biomass conversion, fermentation, fiber conversion, liquefaction or saccharification. The fermentation category consists of nine options, eight of which offer the following benefits: fermentation at high dry solids levels, high temperature tolerance, high organic acid tolerance, reduction in need for additional yeast nutrients, expression of enzymes and maximum starch conversion to improve ethanol yield.

For ethanol producers looking for a non-GMO yeast option, Novonesis now has Innova Delta.

Lallemand’s New Line
Lallemand’s role in the global yeast and enzyme sector is only getting bigger. In June 2024, BASF sold its enzyme business to Lallemand in a move that Angus Ballard, president and general manager of Lallemand Biofuels & Distilled Spirits, says will help the company meet the needs of its global customer base. Lallemand’s portfolio was already well-established before the BASF deal. But the deal did help Lallemand build out its trademarked Convergence fermentation platform to combine high-performance yeast with enzymes.

Phibro’s Quality Commitment
Phibro Ethanol provides non-GMO offerings under its trademarked platform Kinetx, as well as PhibroADY, its GM option. In addition to its yeast strains, Phibro provides two unique services: Phibro CertiPhied and FortiPhi.

The Kinetx lineup was released in 2023, designed to secrete glucoamylase during fermentation, through a collaboration with U.K.-based yeast strain developer Ingenza.

While the company says its products have a variety of positive impacts, Jenny Forbes, vice president of sales and services North America, says Kinetx Spark is likely of particular interest to producers. It has an extremely clean profile that results in low hydrogen sulfide, acetaldehyde and other off-product.

“Producers interested in grain neutral spirits production and CO2 sequestration have solved problems by adopting Kinetx Spark,” she says.

Leaf’s Evolution
The trademarked Evolve Evergreen yeast product from Leaf, a Lesaffre business unit, was developed to maximize efficiency and yields, minimize costs and reduce environmental footprint. The product was developed with the help of Recombia Biosciences, a synthetic biology developer. While Evolve Evergreen is Leaf’s newest and most advanced product, the company also offers Ethanol Red for industrial ethanol production from corn and Safdistil Plus for ethanol produced from beet substrates.

Institutional Yeast Research
As the private sector deploys new research methods for new yeast strain capabilities, the public sector is doing the same.

At the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, a team of scientists is developing a yeast that can stop bacteria strains from “bullying” yeast strains used in ethanol plants. The ARS research team is genetically modifying baker’s yeast with an outer enzyme shell that helps kill or inhibit bacteria. The problem bacteria act as a microbial rival by releasing acetic and lactic acid during fermentation, which the researchers say hinders peak ethanol production capabilities.

The bacteria the researchers are fighting are common in products such as sauerkraut and pickles, according to Shao-Yeh Lu, a research microbiologist working on the new yeast strain. It feeds on the glucose in the corn mash. The coated yeast is upgraded with endolysin, an enzyme that can reduce the presence of bacteria by 85%. To date, only lab-scale trials have been performed. But, according to ARS, if the trials are proven at a larger scale, the need for antibiotics or other chemical cleansers could be greatly reduced.

At the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Biological Sciences, researchers are working on a yeast strain that is “happier with the lights on.” Such a yeast could be more suitable and robust for biofuels production. The Georgia Tech team is looking at ways to introduce rhodopsins, a protein found on trees that converts light into energy. The addition of the rhodopsins to a yeast strain on the cellular level could help the strain grow up to 2% faster when exposed to light, which would benefit the evolution of the yeast. The studies are still ongoing.

At the University of Chicago Illinois-Urbana, researchers are looking at how yeast strains with differing capabilities can work together within a community of microbes in the fermenter. Researchers from a lab working on a synthetic yeast capable of breaking down xylose joined forces with researchers from another lab working to find a more efficient yeast strain capable of breaking down glucose.

The researchers tested and collected data on a process that introduced the two yeast strains at different times.

The researchers discovered that adding the xylose-fermenting yeast strain to the mixture first, followed by the glucose specialist 14 to 29 hours later, dramatically boosted ethanol production, more than doubling the yield. The work helped them see how a division of labor in bioprocessing might help create a better design for the fermentation process. READ MORE