Harnessing energy from plant biomass.

Curr Opin Chem Biol

Department of Chemistry and California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

Published: December 2007

AI Article Synopsis

  • Biofuels from renewable plant biomass could be a carbon-neutral alternative to traditional fuels.
  • There is a need for new techniques to create energy crops that have specific chemical and physical properties.
  • Advances are needed in breaking down lignocellulose into fermentable sugars and optimizing microbes to convert those sugars into ethanol efficiently.

Article Abstract

Biofuels derived from renewable plant biomass offer a potential carbon-neutral replacement for current liquid transportation fuels. Progress toward this initiative requires development of new methods to engineer energy crops with the desired chemical composition and physical characteristics, depolymerize lignocellulose to fermentable units, and program microbial metabolism for efficient conversion of sugars to ethanol.

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cbpa.2007.08.039DOI Listing

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