Enzymes are important step toward cheaper biofuels

May 13, 2009 by timbercommunity

Caltech Scientists Create New Enzymes for Biofuel Production
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and world-leading gene-synthesis company DNA2.0 have taken an important step toward the development of a cost-efficient process to extract sugars from cellulose--the world's most abundant organic material and cheapest form of solar-energy storage. Plant sugars are easily converted into a variety of renewable fuels such as ethanol or butanol.

In a paper published in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Frances H. Arnold, the Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biochemistry at Caltech, and her colleagues report the construction of 15 new highly stable fungal enzyme catalysts that efficiently break down cellulose into sugars at high temperatures. Previously, fewer than 10 such fungal cellobiohydrolase II enzymes were known. In addition to their remarkable stabilities, Arnold's enzymes degrade cellulose over a wide range of conditions.
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http://mr.caltech.edu/press_releases/13242