Extremophiles eyed for cellulosic ethanol production...

[skids]

...for once and article that isn't spoiled by too much hype, though they did give in to the temptation to play off the "extreme" term.

Buried beneath a sulfurous cauldron in European seas lies a class of microorganisms known as "extremophiles," so named because of the extreme environmental conditions in which they live and thrive. Almost as radical, perhaps, is the idea that these organisms and their associated enzymes could somehow unlock the key to a new transportation economy based on a renewable biofuel, lignocellulosic ethanol.

...

"Production is not a concern. More than a billion tons of biomass is estimated to be created each year in the timber and agricultural industries, as well as a variety of grasses and potential energy crops," says Simmons. "Unfortunately, you can't just take a tree trunk, stick it into an enzymatic reactor, and ferment the sugar produced into ethanol with any kind of efficiency. The process of turning certain lignocellulosic materials into ethanol is very difficult and costly."

...

Continuing with the tree trunk analogy, Simmons says the laborious process typically begins by chopping the biomass to reduce its size and then delivering it into a dilute acid pretreatment reactor. The reactor then would break down the biomass into cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. The hemicellulose and cellulose polymers released from the biomass must go through additional processing and acid neutralization before the final product is recovered and placed back into an enzymatic reactor to deconstruct the polymers into fermentable sugars.

...

"Because lignocellulosic biomass is such a multifaceted material, we need to have a fundamental understanding of how it works," said Simmons. While various industry researchers, he said, are investigating new technologies and facilities that will allow for the processing cellulosic biomass into ethanol, he and his Sandia colleagues are hopeful that their method can be efficiently and cheaply integrated with current and future pretreatment steps.

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=48953

(I would note that hemp hurds left over from hemp fiber processing are already pretty finely chopped up, FWIW.)

[hankthecrank]

1. I like this

Make more sense than when they were looking at Elephant dung for the right bugs.

I still think they should look at silage to see if nature already has the right bug.

When we made hay silage it sometimes has real strong ethanol smell to it.

[lfairban]

3. Yes, ethanol can happen.

"Ethanol can also be found in some silage. In corn silage, ethanol is between 1 to 3% of the DM but can sometimes be greater than 6 - 7%."

http://ag.udel.edu/anfs/faculty/kung/articles/analyzing_silages_for_fermentati.htm

[NNadir]

2. Why do we need optimism?

Weren't there people telling us a few years ago how the Iogen corporation was building cellulosic ethanol plants already? I thought the matter was all taken care of.

I thought Saudi Arabia would be out of business by now.