Producing Bioethanol with Irpex lacteus

One of the most common agricultural practices in the world is the harvesting of wheat grains to produce foods like bread, cereal, or pasta. Once the grains are removed, wheat straw is left over as a waste product; this wheat straw can then be used to produce bioethanol, which is an important biofuel that can be used as a substitute for gasoline. In this process, it's first necessary to break down lignin to access the sugar and produce ethanol through fermentation. In the past, the breakdown of lignin produced various waste products that interfered with the production of ethanol, but it has recently been found that Irpex lacteus, a fungus I observed on Mount-Royal, is capable of efficiently and selectively breaking down lignin without producing as many waste products, thus resulting in a fermentable sugar that can be converted into ethanol. Thus, it's possible that it will become common practice to use Irpex lacteus to produce bioethanol out of agricultural waste products.

Publicado el octubre 18, 2021 02:46 TARDE por jikaelgagnon