New Yeast Strain Boosts Ethanol Yields
Another interesting article in the news today. Apparently scientists have developed a new strain of yeast that can produce far more ethanol in a given time period than ‘normal’ strains.
Scientists have created a new strain of yeast that radically speeds up the production of ethanol, the biofuel that can be combined with petrol or diesel to make ‘gasohol’ — a fuel far less polluting than conventional ones.
The strain produced 50 per cent more ethanol over 21 hours than normal yeast, say the team, who publish their research today (8 December) in Science.
Ethanol is made by adding yeast to plant material such as maize, which ferments it. But production is problematic, in part because ethanol is highly toxic to the yeast used for fermentation.
The scientists used a new ‘top-down’ technique to boost ethanol tolerance, in which they changed one part of the yeast copying mechanism so that multiple genes necessary to achieve ethanol and glucose tolerance were simultaneously altered.
For all of you serious scientific souls, here is the original Journal article published in Science: Engineering Yeast Transcription Machinery for Improved Ethanol Tolerance and Production
Technorati Tags: yeast, ethanol, biofuel, fuel, green fuels, alternative energy, gasohol, science
Written by Bentley on December 8th, 2006 with
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