Amid Oil Price Crash, a New Hope for Biofuels

by Tina Casey (Triple Pundit) ... (T)there are reasons to be optimistic about the future of biofuels, as the field continues to evolve remarkably from where it was a decade ago.

Rather than letting the rest of the plant go to waste, the focus has turned to developing enzymes that can break down cellulose, the main component of cell walls. That approach also provides for greater use of non-food crops.

The problem is that cell walls also contain lignin, which interferes with enzymes. That opens the door to a third stage, as researchers engineer plants with more cellulose and less lignin.

Purdue scientist and director of the school’s “C3Bio” biofuel research center Maureen McCann has taken a different approach.

Having studied zinnias, poplar trees and hundreds of other plants, McCann and her team have viewed biofuels through a broad lens that includes fuel, food and other products, such as specialized chemicals.

Within that worldview, they have articulated three holistic goals: increasing the yield per acre, increasing the quality and value of each plant, and increasing the land available for growing crops profitably.

As part of a nine-year Energy Department grant, McCann has been collaborating with chemists and chemical engineers to develop a biofuel system that breaks down both cellulose and lignin with maximum efficiency.

Instead of trying to reduce lignin content, McCann’s approach involves understanding that plants are “marvelous chemists.” Understanding the chemistry is the key to developing new approaches.

For example, one avenue is to engineer plants with looser connections between their cells. Another pathway involves developing plants with catalysts built into their cell walls.

McCann also participated in a newly released Purdue study that describes how farmers can deploy biofuel crops to help increase the yield of their food crops, while also protecting water resources.

The research team, headed by Purdue professor Nick Carpita, focuses on one solution for two problems.

The solution involves planting perennial biofuel crops, like sweet sorghum or switchgrass, as borders around food crops. These “slivers of land” would serve as buffers to prevent fertilizer from impacting water resources.

Meanwhile, biomass harvested from the perennial border crops would be gasified in order to extract hydrogen, which is the main ingredient in ammonia.

The researchers acknowledge that fertilizer produced by such a system probably could not compete at scale in developed countries, where conventional fertilizer is less expensive. Instead, they foresee application in remote areas or emerging economies where soil quality is poor and fertilizer is unaffordable. They envision a decentralized system of small or mobile facilities that bring fertilizer production technology to the farmer.

As the urgency of climate action accelerates, next-generation research is already creating space for biofuel crops in the sustainable economy of the future. READ MORE