The invention relates to carbon fibers which are produced from CO.sub.2 based on different process chains. Amongst these, there are ways to produce, from natural base materials such as algal biomass, carbon fibre base materials such as PAN from CO.sub.2, but there are also purely artificial ways to produce, by means of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, via which carbon fibre precursors are also produced from CO.sub.2. Auxiliary products such as biodiesel and nutrients, which can generate an additional benefit, are produced according to said method.

Methods and systems for the biological conversion of pretreated or solubilized coal or waste coal into biofuels. Coal (10) may be pretreated perhaps in a pretreatment reactor (13). Pretreated coal or even solubilized coal may be introduced into a processing reactor such as a bioreactor (16) containing a plurality of microorganisms (9) such as oleaginous microorganisms which can convert at least some of the pretreated or solubilized coal into lipids (19) or biomass (18), which then may be used directly or as a precursor for various products such as biofuels, feedstock, or the like.

The processes disclosed herein include saccharifying cellulosic and/or lignocellulosic biomass and fermenting the sugars to produce a sugar alcohol.

The processes disclosed herein include saccharifying cellulosic and/or lignocellulosic biomass and fermenting the sugars to produce a sugar alcohol.

The invention describes carbon fibers which are produced on the basis of different process chains from CO2. These include routes through natural resources such as algal biomass to produce carbon fiber precursors such as PAN from CO2, as well as the purely synthetic route via the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, which is also used to make CO2 carbon fiber precursors. In this way, CO2 from anthropogenic origin is to be converted into a solid aggregate state of carbon fiber, which can be disposed of at the end of its life cycle, after being used as highly valuable building material for industry and man, for the construction of buildings and vehicles. These processes produce by-products such as biodiesel and nutrients that generate added value. The production volumes of the resulting substances should be controllable by combining the methods presented here. Some of these processes alone have no long-term climate relevance because of the high costs, but in the initial phase of such a development with the help of carbon dioxide certificates or socio-political necessities they are able to quickly show that carbon fiber building materials can be produced which by themselves are made from CO2 and at least have the quality to be used in the construction sector and for example are feasible to replace steel, in that the paradigm of todays material production being CO2-positive, can be turned into the opposite. If the processeswhich have the disadvantage of large-area consumption on the one hand and the of the lack of energy efficiency in the longer term on the othercan be coupled, they have the potential to support each other. By combining the methods, land use and costs can be adjusted to current regional economic performance based on the material paradigm of the future of carbon-negative production of carbon fibers, also depending on the current evolution of CO2 emission allowance prices. The invention has the desired effect in climate policy that high-tech technology transfer can take place into the currently disadvantaged regions of the world, which promotes the economic performance of today's disadvantaged regions and in particular creates the urgently needed jobs in these regions.

A process of producing an organic compound and/or an intermediary compound by feeding carbon dioxide to a culture of Cyanobacteria cells and subjecting the culture to light, wherein the cells are capable of expressing a nucleic acid molecule that confers the ability to convert a glycolytic intermediate into said organic/intermediary compound. The expression of the nucleic acid molecule is under the control of a regulatory system which responds to a change in the concentration of a nutrient in the culture.

A process of producing an organic compound and/or an intermediary compound by feeding carbon dioxide to a culture of Cyanobacteria cells and subjecting the culture to light, wherein the cells are capable of expressing a nucleic acid molecule that confers the ability to convert a glycolytic intermediate into said organic/intermediary compound. The expression of the nucleic acid molecule is under the control of a regulatory system which responds to a change in the concentration of a nutrient in the culture.

The present invention relates to a polypeptide having phospholipase C activity, selected from the group consisting of i. a polypeptide comprising a mature polypeptide sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2; ii. a polypeptide that has least 85%, 90%, 91%, 92%, 93%, 94%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98% or 99% identity to the mature polypeptide sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2; iii. a polypeptide encoded by a nucleic acid that hybridizes under medium stringency, preferably under high stringency conditions to the complementary strand of the mature polypeptide coding sequence of SEQ ID NO:1; iv. a polypeptide encoded by a nucleic acid that has at least 85%, 90%, 91%, 92%, 93%, 94%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98%, 99% or 100% identity to the mature polypeptide coding sequence of SEQ ID NO: 1. A process for degumming a vegetable oil comprising contacting a vegetable oil comprising phospholipids with a polypeptide having phospholipase C activity of the invention or a composition of the invention, wherein phospholipids are hydrolyzed into diacylglycerol and phosphate ester and/or phosphate, separating the phosphate ester and/or phosphate from the vegetable oil wherein a degummed vegetable oil is obtained.

The present invention relates to a polypeptide having phospholipase C activity, selected from the group consisting of i. a polypeptide comprising a mature polypeptide sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2; ii. a polypeptide that has least 85%, 90%, 91%, 92%, 93%, 94%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98% or 99% identity to the mature polypeptide sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2; iii. a polypeptide encoded by a nucleic acid that hybridizes under medium stringency, preferably under high stringency conditions to the complementary strand of the mature polypeptide coding sequence of SEQ ID NO:1; iv. a polypeptide encoded by a nucleic acid that has at least 85%, 90%, 91%, 92%, 93%, 94%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98%, 99% or 100% identity to the mature polypeptide coding sequence of SEQ ID NO: 1. A process for degumming a vegetable oil comprising contacting a vegetable oil comprising phospholipids with a polypeptide having phospholipase C activity of the invention or a composition of the invention, wherein phospholipids are hydrolyzed into diacylglycerol and phosphate ester and/or phosphate, separating the phosphate ester and/or phosphate from the vegetable oil wherein a degummed vegetable oil is obtained.

The present disclosure provides methods of producing commodity products, the methods involving culturing a host cell that is genetically modified to produce a uronate dehydrogenase (UDH) that converts a sugar acid to its corresponding 1,5-aldonolactone, that uses NADP.sup.+ or NAD.sup.+ as a cofactor, and that produces NADPH or NADH, respectively, where the host cell coexpresses an endogenous or a heterologous reductase that utilizes the produced NADPH or NADH to generate the commodity product or a precursor thereof. The present disclosure provides a method of producing downstream products of glycerol and pyruvate in a genetically modified microbial host cell, the method involving culturing a genetically modified microbial host cell of the present disclosure in a culture medium comprising D-galacturonic acid. The present disclosure provides variant UDH polypeptides that utilize NADP.sup.+, nucleic acids encoding the variant UDH polypeptides; and host cells genetically modified with the nucleic acids.