Cellulosic Biofuel Production, Fermenting Xylose

infozine.com
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Jeannine Chatterton-Papineau

Researchers at Illinois, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California at Berkeley, Seoul National University and the oil company BP have engineered a yeast that outperforms the industry standard in the production of ethanol from cellulosic biomass.

Champaign, IL - infoZine - A newly engineered yeast strain can simultaneously consume two types of sugar from plants to produce ethanol, researchers report. The sugars are glucose, a six-carbon sugar that is relatively easy to ferment; and xylose, a five-carbon sugar that has been much more difficult to utilize in ethanol production. The new strain, made by combining, optimizing and adding to earlier advances, reduces or eliminates several major inefficiencies associated with current biofuel production methods.

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