Biofuel production and bioconversion

Converting plant biomass into liquid fuels requires breaking down the tough, fibrous structure of lignocellulosic materials — the stems, husks, and woody residues that make up most agricultural and forestry waste. Researchers work to develop pretreatment processes and cellulase enzyme systems that can efficiently disassemble this recalcitrant material so its sugars become accessible for fermentation into bioethanol. A central challenge is doing this economically at scale, which has pushed work toward integrated biorefinery designs that extract multiple products from a single biomass stream to justify the cost. Active questions include how to engineer more robust enzymes, reduce the energy burden of pretreatment steps, and identify which feedstocks and microbial strains yield the most favorable conversion efficiencies under real-world conditions.

Works

146,336

Total citations

2,743,641

Keywords

PretreatmentEnzymatic HydrolysisLignocellulosic BiomassBioethanol ProductionCellulase EnzymesBiorefinery Concept