Innovation Anthology #416:
Students at the University of Alberta believe they may have a better and cheaper way to produce biodiesel.
For their entry into the 2011 International Genetically Engineered Machines Competition, they’ve turned their attention to a lowly fungus that grows on charred trees after a forest fire.
As 4th year biochemistry student Ray Odsen explains, the team will genetically enhance the ability of this fungus to digest cellulose.
RAY ODSEN: The organism eats cellulose and it turns that into energy. But the base sort of theory behind it is that cellulose is carbon. So when an organism will intake carbon, it can turn that carbon into many other forms of carbon since you can’t destroy an element, it just turns into different forms. So we want to turn the carbon from cellulose into fatty acids. And fatty acids like you might find in oil or butter, anything like that, can be esterified through a chemical process to produce biodiesel. So we’re essentially trying to take the cellulose carbon, turn it into fatty acid, to turn that into biodiesel. And it’s a relatively well characterized process.
Ray Odsen says the genetically altered fungus could produce biodiesel from agricultural and pulp mill waste. And this will reduce the need to use food crops like corn.
Thanks today to Alberta Innovates Technology Futures
FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
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Program Date: 2011-08-11