Food from coal-derived materials by microbial synthesis

THE explosive increase in the world's population has been accompanied by an overall food shortage. New and increased supplies of food, especially high quality protein, are urgently needed. Earlier investigations have described the growth of micro-organisms on paraffins, synthetic liquid fuel (‘Kogasin’), and petroleum fractions1–3. Recently, it has been found that micro-organisms convert petroleum or petroleum fractions to protein, vitamins, or amino-acids4–14. Because coal is a cheap fossil fuel and by far the most abundant source of readily available, fixed carbon, investigations were initiated to determine whether coal could serve as a source of high protein food.