DISCO to find key to bioethanol
27 Oct 2010 by Evoluted New Media
Spruce chips, wheat straw and waste bran – just a few of the industrial leftovers scientists are hoping to turn into bioethanol if they can find new enzymes to break their tough structure.
Spruce chips, wheat straw and waste bran – just a few of the industrial leftovers scientists are hoping to turn into bioethanol if they can find new enzymes to break their tough structure.
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DISCO hopes to make use of unwanted wood chip |
In a Europe-wide project named DISCO, scientists are searching for microorganisms that are able to break down lignocelluloses – a complex carbohydrate mixture bound to lignin that gives trees and plants their strength. If found, scientists hope these microorganisms can turn waste materials – wheat straw, spruce chips and waste bran – into the simple sugars needed to make biofuels.
“We’re looking to nature to find answers to the problem of efficiently generating next-generation biofuels from renewable sources, in this case abundant waste materials from farming and industry,” said Professor Kristiina Kruss from the Technical Research Centre in Finland who are leading the project, “That answer could literally be lying in the soil in an undiscovered and uncharacteristic microorganism.”
The project will look for microorganisms that are able to break down the lignocellulosic materials – which form the basis of wood. It will use libraries of microorganisms – including one from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BUTE). The library contains over 4,000 different microorganisms obtained from a multitude of different sources. Several promising candidates for lignocellulosic enzyme activity have already been identified and are further being characterised in the labs of other DISCO partners.
The overall aim of the project is to end up with a cocktail of microorganism-derived enzymes that can simultaneously breakdown the complex lignocelluloses into simple sugars, and enable yeast co-fermentation to produce bioethanol.
