Australia’s national science agency is collaborating with leading universities on an 8.3-million Australian dollar ($8.17 million) research collaboration to use enzymes to produce biofuels from waste plant feed stocks.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization’s Energy Transformed Cluster on Biofuels seeks viable ways to transform waste plant materials into a sustainable low-emission fuel for cars, trucks and even planes.

The three-year Cluster on Biofuels collaboration will involve C.S.I.R.O. and the Australian National University, the RMIT University, the University of Queensland and the University of Manchester in Britain.

The cluster will use enzyme biotechnology to develop the transport fuels of the future in a sustainable way by improving production of second generation biofuels.

The widespread use of biofuels from waste material will reportedly have two benefits – it will allow for carbon-neutral transportation and encourage the cultivation of food crops.

Biofuels are considered carbon neutral in the sense that the carbon released during their use is balanced by the carbon sequestration that producing the biofuels creates. In the case of biofuels derived from plant material, the growing plants absorb and store carbon dioxide and this reduces the human contributions of global warming.

Increased biofuel use would also increase the cultivation of food stock such as wheat, sugar cane and corn. The ability to make use of the waste products of these crops would give them additional value while assuaging fears of food shortages.

“Using raw plant materials which would otherwise be considered waste, second generation biofuels generated using enzyme biotechnology processes are a sustainable and viable replacement for transport fuels derived from oil,” said Professor Chris Easton of the Australian National University.

The participants in the research cluster have reportedly identified promising enzymes and sources of enzymes and are working to improve them and produce them on a large scale to make their use in biofuel production commercially feasible.

The transport section is said to be the third largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. It is estimated that biofuels from waste plant feedstock has the potential to provide 30 percent of Australia’s future transport needs.

Recently, researchers at the University of Illinois and Washington State University in the United States also worked to use enzymes to produce second generation biofuels, though their breakthrough came with working from a nonfood source related crop known as switchgrass.

The American researchers studied the digestion processes of cows and were able to find several enzymes within the cow’s rumen that were capable of breaking down switchgrass which they believe have applications in the biofuel industry.

Source: ecoseed.org