Brass: Center focuses study on biofuels

knoxvillebiz.com
By Larisa Brass
Posted November 17, 2009 at midnight

Two years after landing $25 million in federal and $70 million in state funding, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee are steadily marching toward the goal of turning plants into fuel - or "grass to gas," as cheerfully touted by the partners' Bioenergy Science Center Web site.

With 16 invention disclosures and 113 publications, work on the problem of freeing sugars that largely constitute trees and grass to make what's known as cellulosic ethanol is picking up pace, said Brian Davison, chief scientist for systems biology and biotechnology at ORNL and coordinator for biomass characterization and modeling for the Bioenergy Science Center.

The center is made up of national labs, universities, including the University of Tennessee, and private corporations working to develop ways of rendering cellulosic biofuels as cost effective to produce as gasoline.

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