Agave sisalana: New Candidate for Biofuel Source

Biofuels have the potential to power cars and generators with energy from plant biomass. However, biomass sources for biofuels start with food crops. This creates a conflict of interest with the global food security crisis. Hence, searching for alternative plant biomass sources is a must. Now, the search for alternative sources of biomass has led to agave.

A PhD student at the University of Liverpool, Phaitun Bupphada from Thailand, is studying the plant Agave sisalana as a biofuel plant under Dr James Hartwell. Agave brings a number of favorable characteristics for use as a fuel, as it contains large amounts of sugar and cellulose, and grows productively in seasonally dry areas. It can also be grown in semi-arid conditions unsuited to food crops and is already grown for fiber in several countries. Agave also has the Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM) pathway of photosynthesis. This means that it loses a lot less water during photosynthesis.

Phaitun has sequenced the RNA from agave in hopes of gaining an understanding of the genes used for CAM photosynthesis. In the long-term,  information on these genes would allow development of agave with improved biomass suitable as a feedstock crop.

Phaitun came to Liverpool as a result of the partnership of the Agricultural Research Development Agency (ARDA), Thailand and the University of Liverpool. He is in collaboration with Liverpool's Centre for Genomic Research.