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| Swedish scientists test fungus that has ethanol Midas-touch |
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| BY LINDA McGURK
Indiana Correspondent
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – For now, corn is king when it comes to American ethanol production. But corn alone won’t satisfy America’s ever-increasing appetite for the renewable fuel, and the race is already on to make cellulosic ethanol commercially viable.
“Last year, we produced 5.3 billion gallons (of ethanol); this year, we’ll make about eight billion gallons and next year, about 11 billion,” said Wallace Tyner, professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University.
“My sense is that the production will top out at about 15 million gallons.
After that, there’s not much more room to grow, and we’ll have to go to cellulosic sources.”
A research breakthrough on cellulosic ethanol technology was recently made when a team of Swedish scientists discovered a fungus that can effectively convert waste products to ethanol.
“It is low-maintenance, requiring hardly anything to start growing and degrading the waste,” said Mohammad Taherzadeh, a professor of biotechnology at the University of Borås, who headed the research team.
“We have tried to get it to grow in sulfite lye, but also in brush, forestry waste and fruit rinds, and the results were equally good in all cases.”
According to Taherzadeh, using these types of waste products as a feedstock could significantly improve the economics of ethanol production.
The fungus, a saprophyte within the order zygomycetes, is more effective than baker’s yeast, which is currently used for ethanol production.
It’s not the first ethanol-producing fung |
| 4/18/2007 |
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