Poplar trees useful in biofuel development
University of California, Riverside By Vy Nguyen Published: Monday, April 4, 2011
Researchers from the Department of Energy's BioEnergy Science Center have uncovered a surprising discovery concerning poplar trees that will help researchers decide the candidates for the second generation biofuels.
The Bourns College of Engineering's Center for Environmental Research and Technology at the University of California Riverside, a research team from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and UC Riverside calls into question the assumption that high amounts of lignin in plants is the reason why it is so difficult to convert some plants into biofuels.
As stated in a UCR Newsroom article, "lignin serves as a major roadblock for biofuel production because it forms strong bonds with sugars and interferes with access to extract the plant's sugars contained in [the] cellulose and hemicelluloses for conversion to transport fuels."
However, researchers discovered that this was not always the case. High amounts of lignin only affected plants with low contents of syringyl and guaiacyl, which are two major building blocks of lignin. Researchers were also excited to discover some hidden secrets of poplar trees.
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