What if you could turn your lawn clippings and potato peels into fuel? It sounds like alchemy, but a research team with the U.S. Department of Energy, of all places, have managed to do it—using bacteria. The Joint BioEnergy Institute (with the D.O.E.) and South San Francisco-based biotech company LS9 have engineered a strain of E. coli that can digest plant waste and turn it directly into biodiesel.

The joint research team added some genes that let the E. coli strain produce enzymes that can break down cellulose, the tough fibrous bits of plants that we usually throw out. The enzymes break cellulose down into sugars, which the bacteria use to make biodiesel.

The bioengineers also tweaked the E. coli to make it put on weight. Normally, the bacteria doesn’t hold on to excess oil, but the new strain packs on the pounds, which increases biodiesel yield considerably.

The team envisions the bacteria being used to turn corn husks, grass clippings, saw dust, wheat stalks, and virtually any plant waste into biodiesel. It’s currently perfecting the strain and hopes to make it commercially available in the near future.

Link to UC Berkeley article

Burning plants for fuel is greener than you think. The logic is this: Burning plants releases CO2, but growing plants locks it back up again. In essence, it’s carbon neutral. But you can’t run a car on firewood. That’s why a group of chemists at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have developed a new catalyst that can turn cellulose—the stuff plants are made of—into the key component of biofuel.

The new catalyst, an ionic liquid called chromium chloride, can break cellulose down into simple sugars and then hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), a big component of fuel and plastic.

The process is ten times faster than the standard acid-based method, and can be performed at much lower temperatures (about 120 degrees C).

It’s possible the catalyst can be used to convert the waste from food crops, like corn husks and wheat chaff and stocks, into carbon neutral fuel for transport or power. That means less fossil fuel burned and less net CO2 in the atmosphere.

Link to Gizmag article