Maryland researchers turn poplar trees into biofuel

By Meredith Cohn, The Baltimore Sun
May 3, 2010

In response to a national call for homegrown, Earth-friendly fuels to fill Americans' gas tanks, a couple of University of Maryland researchers are planting trees.

Fuel derived from the hardy, fast-growing common poplar could eventually replace some of the billions of gallons of petroleum-based fuel now pumped a year, say biologist Gary Coleman and engineer Ganesh Sriram, who have partnered to help turn the woody plant into a widely used biofuel.

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Fly the Poplar Skies: Research teams developing processes for carbon-negative renewable jet fuel, higher poplar yields

Biofuels Digest
March 01, 2010

In Wisconsin and Maryland, a pair of teams are working independently on processes that, when paired, may lead to the direct conversion of poplar trees into jet fuel as well as other high-density biofuels. One project is just getting underway in Maryland — a project to radically improve the nitrogen efficiency of poplar by discovering, defining and enhancing the switching mechanisms in the poplar genome nitrogen cycle thereby improving the plant’s already considerable reputation for fast growth.

A second project in Wisconsin is now reporting results in Science magazine, the direct conversion (in two steps) of cellulose to jet fuel via an old fuel pathway — GVLs — that have now been made radically more efficient at Jim Dumesic’s lab at the University of Wisconsin.

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Put a Tree in Your Tank: University of Maryland receives grant to turn poplars into biofuel

CanadianBusiness.com
From The Associated Press, February 25, 2010 - 12:42 AM

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) - Fuel for your car could grow on trees.

Researchers from the University of Maryland's College Park and Bowie State campuses are working to develop a poplar hybrid that could be used to make biofuels including ethanol, which is blended into gasoline and also used by flex-fuel vehicles. The tree wouldn't be taken from forests, but grown on plantations.

The researchers have received a $3.2 million, four-year grant from the National Science Foundation's Plant Genome Research Project.

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Studying Sorghum for Ethanol in Maryland

DomesticFuel.com
Posted by Cindy Zimmerman – September 19th, 2009

Researchers at Salisbury University in Maryland are studying the potential for growing sweet sorghum for cellulosic ethanol in the state.

Since May, eight sweet sorghum varieties have been growing on a Wicomico County farm for evaluation as potential stock for ethanol production on the Delmarva peninsula. Dr. Samuel Geleta of Salisbury Univerisity’s Biological Sciences Department says about half of the varieties have already been harvested, with the rest to be finished by mid-October. Some of the plants grew to a height of 12 feet. He said sweet sorghum is attractive because it is drought resistant, fast-growing and has low nutrient and fertilization requirements. “Sweet sorghum can be grown on marginal land with less fertilizer and water as compared to corn,” Geleta said. “Since sweet sorghum juice contains simple sugar, producing ethanol from it simply requires extracting the juice and fermenting.”

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ARS Research Shows Sweet Potatoes and Cassava Yield 2-3 Times More Carbohydrate Content Than Corn for Ethanol Production

GrainNet.com
Date Posted: August 20, 2008

In experiments, sweet potatoes grown in Maryland and Alabama yielded two to three times as much carbohydrate for fuel ethanol production as field corn grown in those states, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists report.

The same was true of tropical cassava in Alabama.

The sweet potato carbohydrate yields approached the lower limits of those produced by sugarcane, the highest-yielding ethanol crop.

Another advantage for sweet potatoes and cassava is that they require much less fertilizer and pesticide than corn.

Lew Ziska, a plant physiologist at the ARS Crop Systems and Global Change Laboratory in Beltsville, MD, and colleagues at Beltsville and at the ARS National Soil Dynamics Laboratory in Auburn, AL, performed the study.

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Bacterium from Bay could help to develop cellulosic ethanol

Bay Journal
April 2008
By Karl Blankenship

A type of bacteria taken from the Chesapeake may eventually help prevent pollution from reaching the Bay.

Researchers at the University of Maryland in March said they had developed a new process to convert biomass material into ethanol using a bacteria discovered two decades ago that decomposes marsh grasses in the Bay.

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