ARS: New Yeasts Could Help Fast-track biofuel production

Ag Professional reports that new yeasts could be an important breakthrough in industrial ethanol production. Developed by an Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist, the yeast makes ethanol from both five-carbon and six-carbon sugars without needing oxygen. It’s difficult to control oxygen levels as yeasts ferment sugars into ethanol, and the new yeast strain would help alleviate this problem, according to ARS.

Producers already make grain ethanol by using yeast to ferment six-carbon plant sugars like glucose. But cost-effective production of cellulosic ethanol will require using both six-carbon and five-carbon sugars in the process. The new yeast doesn’t directly convert large quantities of xylose into ethanol. Instead, xylose provides energy the yeast needs to grow and reproduce without oxygen. This means that the glucose that might have been used by the yeast to grow and reproduce is now available for fermentation, and the rate of ethanol conversion increases.

This research has been published in the August 2009 Journal of the Association of Laboratory Automation.