Paneuropeanyank’s NewsCloud Journal http://paneuropeanyank.newscloud.com A NewsCloud community weblog Wed, 16 Apr 2008 06:02:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=wordpress-mu-1.2.3-2.2.1 en New Enzyme Promises to Reduce Ethanol Costs http://paneuropeanyank.newscloud.com/2008/04/03/new-enzyme-promises-to-reduce-ethanol-costs/ http://paneuropeanyank.newscloud.com/2008/04/03/new-enzyme-promises-to-reduce-ethanol-costs/#comments Fri, 04 Apr 2008 02:39:17 +0000 paneuropeanyank http://paneuropeanyank.newscloud.com/2008/04/03/new-enzyme-promises-to-reduce-ethanol-costs/ University of Maryland research that started with bacteria from the Chesapeake Bay has led to a process that may be able to convert large volumes of all kinds of plant products, from leftover brewer’s mash to paper trash, into ethanol and other biofuel alternatives to gasoline.

The secret to the process is a Chesapeake Bay marsh grass bacterium, S. degradans. Researchers found that the bacterium has an enzyme that could quickly break down plant materials into sugar, which can then be converted to biofuel.

Theresearchers were unable to isolate the Bay bacterium again in nature, but they discovered how to produce the enzyme in their own laboratories.

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