Due to the need to create alternative fuels from plant materials, enzymes capable of breaking down these materials into useful compounds are required in commercial quantities and at cheap prices. One research group from the University of Texas found an idea: using the plants themselves to produce these enzymes
Professor Zivko Nikolov, who is in charge of the Biological Separations Laboratory, explained the results of the study on July XNUMX at the annual meeting of the Society for Experimental Biology.
Current methods for producing enzymes for biofuel production are up to five times more expensive than the normal production of fuel and are therefore not commercial enough. By using plants engineered to produce these particular proteins Professor Nikolov believes that this commercial goal can be achieved. His group, which specializes in the development of economic work methods, has planned a work strategy that allows obtaining a variety of products from each crop, so that the process as a whole becomes economic.
"One of our projects focused on the production of cellulases, enzymes that break down biomass (the total amount of living organisms in a given area) in corn kernels. Through careful planning of the sequence of operations in the process, a single crop of corn can produce natural oil that can be used as biofuel and in the process also obtain fibers and proteins that can be used as feed for the bee and, of course, the enzymes themselves," he reveals. "Obtaining a variety of these products compensates for the enzyme purification process, that is - we are able to produce cheaper enzymes than those currently obtained by normal fermentation methods, a result we also get in a similar venture for sugar cane production."
In the nineties there was a special interest in the use of plants to produce industrial enzymes and drugs, but in the last five years the development of such enzymes has gone out of fashion, mainly due to the high cost of production and public discomfort. Now Professor Nikolov's group has brought this technology back into the picture.
"The economic improvements we introduced to the way of production, combined with greater public tolerance for genetically modified plants, contribute to the fact that we can now use the full potential of this technology. This, in turn, will bring us closer to the essential challenge of producing cheap alternative fuels over the coming decades," he concludes.
