Frank Koopman and colleagues from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) report the discovery of Cupriavidus basilensis, a bacterium which converts furan aldehydes in pretreated lignocellulosic biomass into a bio-plastic raw material. In the pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass for cellulose-ethanol production, furan aldehydes (5-hydroxymethylfurfural, abbreviated as HMF, and furfural) are side-products which inhibit the microorganisms that ferment ethanol. Usually a detoxification step is added to remove furan aldehydes from the treated biomass, prior to saccharification and ethanol fermentation. Koopman discovered that Cupriavidus basilensis can utilize furan aldehydes as its carbon sources, and produces a material called FDCA (furan dicarboxylic acid) in the process. According to the NWO news release, the researchers partially mapped out the degradative process of the bacteria, in order to transfer this metabolic capability (i.e. furan aldehyde degradation) to other organisms. The enzyme responsible for the formation of FDCA can fully convert HMF into FDCA, unlike most of the chemical processes. When the genes expressing the enzyme was inserted in Pseudomonas putida bacteria, the production of high concentrations of FDCA was achieved in the lab scale. FDCA is also reported to be the raw material for the production of environment-friendly bio-plastics. The discovery is interesting because the microrganism can just be added to pretreated biomass for the removal of furan aldhehydes. This would be a much cheaper method compared to the chemical detoxification method. At the same time, the furan aldehydes are converted into an environment-friendly product.