ABSTRACT
CO-PRODUCTION OF HIGH-VALUE RECOMBINANT BIOBASED MATTER IN BIOENERGY CROPS FOR EXPEDITING THE CELLULOSIC BIOFUELS AGENDA
Mariam B. Sticklen
At present, food crops such as sugarcane sugar and corn seed starch are used to commercially produce ethanol. The goal of the biofuels industry is to produce biofuels from crop waste matter, that are non-food residues whose cellulosic matter are converted into hydrocarbon liquid fuels (mostly ethanol) after transportation and storage, pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose via the use of microbial cellulases for production of fermentable sugars, followed by fermentation of sugars. Despite recent improvements in pretreatment technology and modifications of genomes of bioenergy crops via anti-sense methods to lower their lignin contents for an enhanced hydrolysis [1], and improvements made in genomes of cellulase-producing microbes and even considering the synthetic biology [2], the costs associated with cellulosic biofuel production remains to be the inhibitory factor to the non-subsidized commercialization and sustainable economy of cellulosic biofuel industry.
