New Pretreatment Technique Could Significantly Cut Biofuel Costs

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have invented a pretreatment technique that could cut the cost of biofuel production by reducing the amount of enzymes needed in biofuels production. The team's new technique, callled Co-solvent Enhanced Lignocellulosic Fractionation (CELF), could reduce about 90 percent of enzymes needed for converting lignocellulosic biomass into fuels.

"These findings are very significant because they establish a new pretreatment process that can dramatically reduce enzyme loadings and costs, thereby improving the competitiveness for biological conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to fuels," said Professor Charles Wyman, the Ford Motor Company Chair in Environmental Engineering at UC Riverside.

In addition to cutting the amount of enzymes needed, CELF is also capable of dissolving and extracting up to 90 percent of the lignin from the biomass. This lignin can also be a source of additional high value chemicals and fuels.

The findings of Wyman's research group were published in the journal ChemSusChem.