Wisconsin Looks To Soybeans For Biofuel

ATHAN LEAF 608-252-6126

nleaf@madison.com

Over the past few years, ethanol plants have sprung up all over Wisconsin and much of the Midwest as the biofuel has been touted as the solution to America's energy woes. And so far, corn has been the undisputed king.

C5-6 Technologies of Middleton is working to change the landscape of the biofuel industry. It plans to do this with newly developed enzymes - proteins that catalyze chemical reactions - that will not only make production of corn ethanol more efficient but also expand the raw materials, or feedstocks, that can be used to create the fuel.

John Biondi, Lucigen's former chief operating officer, was named president of the new company, which is named for the five and six carbon sugars formed by its enzymes.

Biondi said the enzymes will extract ethanol from parts of corn and other biomass that have to this point been commercially impossible to use in ethanol production. This will extend to cellulosic ethanol production, using materials such as switchgrass and wood chips.

But the company's most intriguing feedstock target is a plant already very familiar to Wisconsin farmers and the biofuel industry - the soybean.

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