During world war II military leaders in South Pacific saw massive deterioration of clothing and tents.Investigation revealed that a fungus T Ressei was behind the damage.This fungus was later identified as a source of industrial enzymes and for conversion of plant fibers into sugars.Now it seems that this spidery organism may also hold the key to improvement in biofuel production.Researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute recently uncovered clues about the mechanism of breakdown of plant fibers into sugars by T Ressei.Researchers believe that a deeper understanding of breakdown mechanism of the fungus may pave for development of cost effective processes of conversion of municipal wastes into ethanol.This ethanol from waste products would have a smaller carbon footprint than gasoline. On an industrial scale T Reesei may be employed to secrete enzymes that may be further purified .These purified enzymes may be further added to a mixture of cellulose pulp and other materials for sugar production,which in turn may be further processed for ethanol production.
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Biofuel from Fungus ?
Srikant Rajan -
Biofuel from Garbage
Srikant RajanEthanol production in US is to a large extent done by processing corn fuel.However the process of corn cultivation requires significant input of land and energy ,in addition to raising the ethical question of trading food for fuel.In addition the green efficiency of ethanol produced from this method is low and this process may actually pollute the environment.Alternatives sources such as grass,wood require few resources for ethanol production but in turn need expensive processing technology.Coskata, a startup based in Warrenville is pioneering a radical method which it believes will reduce the processing cost associated with any organic material.This startup’s technology has caught attention of giants such as General Motors which is partnering with Coskata to help commercialization of the technology on a big scale.
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