Biological methane conversion by methanotrophic bacteria

In this dissertation, research works were presented on exploration of different aspects in biological methane conversion by methanotrophic bacteria using both experimental and computational techniques. First, robustness of methanotroph Methylococcus capsulatus Bath in raw natural gas was examined. Significant amount of hydrogen sulfide may exist in raw natural gas, and studies on its stress response toward toxicity of hydrogen sulfide remains unknown. An extensive investigation on viability of methanotroph in raw natural gas will improve its commercialization progress. Using next-generation sequencing technique and bioinformatic analysis, the transcriptomic change of M. capsulatus Bath toward toxicity of hydrogen sulfide was profiled at molecular level and it revealed unexpected observations. Although the presence of hydrogen sulfide slows the growth of M. capsulatus Bath, sulfide was shown to upregulate sulfide oxidation related enzymes, sulfide quinone reductase and persulfide dioxygenase as well as a novel lanthanide-dependent methanol dehydrogenase. Furthermore, efforts have been made on investigation of a feasible methane bioreactor. An inhouse bench-scale airlift column reactor was designed and constructed where methane conversion performance was studied. At last, the manuscript of an earlier cooperative publication on chemotaxis of Bacillus subtilis was included.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Chemical Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Pei, Sichong

Contributors dc:contributor

• Rao, Christopher V
• Leckband, Deborah E
• Shukla, Diwakar
• Jensen, Paul A

• Methanotroph
• Methane Oxidation

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Sichong Pei

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/117769

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F117769