Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have significantly shortened the process of turning wood chips and sawdust into biofuel with a new super enzyme, promising new profitability for the forestry and wood processing industries.

Like a tiny wood machine, the new super enzyme, which shoots holes into the wood surface with the help of oxygen bullets, scratches up the surface of the wood allowing other enzymes to gain access and break the hard surface down into sugar. The simplified sugar product can be fermented into ethanol.

Advanced biofuel developers are looking to woody trees instead of food crops as new sources of raw material for making bioethanol, especially now that the demand for paper is on the decline. But converting the woody biomass into ethanol fuel is a time-consuming process, which may last for several weeks, and has been an economic bottleneck for biofuel developers. With a new super enzyme, the process can be completed in hours.

After the discovery of the super enzyme in 2010, researchers needed to better understand how the molecule works to improve the use of the enzyme even more. NTNU biotechnology researcher Finn Lillelund Aachmann is using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technology, which permits a detailed study of each nucleus of a molecule, to unveil a new understanding of the super enzyme.

South Dakota State University scientists have discovered a suite of native grass insects that no one ever cared about previously but could someday become significant pests when farmers start cultivating native grasses for ethanol feedstock production.

Research at the SDSU Plant Science Department has documented previously unknown grass insects that rely on North American native grasses like the prairie cordgrass, switchgrass and cup plant. Forage crop breeders at SDSU have been exploring the native prairie ecosystem to look for grasses that would someday replace food crops like corn and sugarcane as sources of raw material for making ethanol. 

The future could hold similar opportunities for these native grass insects, which tended to get overlooked for many years, to emerge as significant pests if their host plants become crops cultivated for biofuel. This is what the researchers are seeing from their experimental plots. For example, the switchgrass moth, switchgrass midge and another moth called giant eucosm can reduce both biomass and seed yield of their host plants. The cordgrass moth and the cordgrass bug can cause devastating reductions in biomass and plant health of prairie cordgrass. Scientists are now prompted to look into the interaction of these grassland insects with their hosts.

Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have identified two key genes required for oil production and accumulation in plant leaves and other vegetative plant tissues.

The new finding, published in separate papers in the journals The Plant Journal and The Plant Cell, could have important implications for increasing the energy content of plant-based foods and renewable biofuel feedstocks.

The Brookhaven research aims to reprogram plants to store the energy-dense oil compound known as triacylglycerol (TAG) in their leaves and vegetative tissues, the most abundant sources of plant biomass. The researchers reported that overexpression of the gene for the enzyme phospholipid diacylglycerol acyltransferase 1 (PDAT1) resulted in higher TAG content, present as oil droplets, in the leaves of Arabidopsis thaliana plants. The researchers also activated the gene for oleosin along with PDAT1 to boost leaf oil content by up to 6.4 percent of the dry weight without affecting membrane lipid composition and plant growth. Oleosin is a protein that prevents oil droplets from fusing together, keeping them smaller while also protecting the oil inside. 

The scientists used radio-labeled carbon (C-14) to identify the biochemical mechanism by which PDAT increases oil production. They traced the uptake of C-14-labeled acetate into fatty acids, the building blocks of membrane lipids and oils. These results showed that PDAT increased the rate at which these fatty acids were made.

Scientists at the University of Minnesota are working to improve the grain yield of a perennial grain crop known as intermediate wheatgrass to make it a more economically attractive source of food and biofuel.

Intermediate wheatgrass, which is related to wheat, rye and barley, has the potential to be the first perennial crop to produce both biomass for energy and grain for food, according to Donald Wyse, a professor of agronomy and plant genetics at U of M. As a biofuel source, intermediate wheatgrass is a promising northern-climate alternative to switchgrass, a warm season perennial. This plant produces a lot of biomass but current grain yield is low.

Wyse believes that while intermediate wheatgrass fits directly into feedstock supply owing to its biomass potential, suppliers would pay more for biomass if the crop is competitive in terms of grain yield and return on investment. Wyse and other researchers are working to improve the yield of intermediate wheatgrass to allow it to compete with annual crops such as corn, soybeans and wheat. Current focus is on developing varieties that produce larger seeds and higher seed yield.

"We need to get the grain part working, then the biomass part can follow, whether it's converted to a liquid fuel, burned or put into a cow," Wyse said.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) will provide DNA sequencing support valued at $1.2 million for a research project at the University of Missouri – Kansas City, which looks into how a species of mold could help turn plant material into fuel.

The JBEI will provide DNA sequencing for up to 600 strains of Neurospora crassa, a common plant-associated mold species that can break down complex molecules and can be used as a model organism to understand how other organisms break down complex plant material.

With the grant, UMKC researchers will choose among the many mutant strains of Neurospora crassa in their collection and send them to the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute where DNA sequencing and preliminary analysis will be done. Knowing the sequence of each mutant will enable researchers to use Neurospora as a tool to understand how complex biological processes can be utilized for production of fuel and for processing of food and feed.