NASA looks at plant biomass as new source of biofuel in space

CleanTech.com
August 14, 2009 - by Lisa Sibley, Cleantech Group

Moffett Field, Calif.-based scientists plan to apply a new bionanotech approach, which breaks down inedible plant material into usable sugars.

NASA research scientist Chad Paavola has a problem to solve: When astronauts leave the earth for long periods of time, they’re going to need to produce plants for food and the air they breathe.

Some of the crops will be edible and some won’t, such as the leaves and stems of the plants. But what happens to the inedible biomass while they are in orbit?

Paavola told the Cleantech Group today that he and a team of scientists at Moffett Field, Calif.-based NASA Ames Research Center are researching a way to transform those inedible parts into useful resources such as biofuels, chemicals and even recovering some of it for food.

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