Contact: Ron Raines, (608) 262-8588, rtraines@wisc.edu

MADISON – A University of Wiscosnin-Madison research team has developed a promising new chemical method to liberate the sugar molecules trapped inside inedible plant biomass, a key step in the creation of cellulosic biofuels.

The approach, which is described in the March 9 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, can convert three-quarters of the sugars locked up in raw corn stover into simple, fermentable sugars, making it an attractive alternative to the enzyme-based approaches currently favored by biofuels researchers.

“Our chemical process is extremely efficient,” says Ron Raines, a UW-Madison professor of biochemistry and chemistry. “It also has marked advantages over the existing processes-both chemical or enzymatic-for producing sugars from biomass.”

Working under a strong federal mandate, scientists across the nation are developing next-generation biofuels from inedible plant materials such as corn stover, switchgrass and wood chips. Unlike most ethanol on the market today, these so-called cellulosic biofuels would not be derived from food sources, potentially reducing the stress on food systems. But the complex structure of plant material keeps cellulose’s energy-rich sugars locked up in tangled webs, making the process of converting it to fuel difficult. In recent years, scientists have been trying to find and engineer enzymes that can break down the sugars more efficiently, potentially opening the door to the commercial production of fuel from cellulose.

Raines’ chemical approach, which he developed with graduate student Joe Binder, a doctoral candidate in the chemistry department, on the other hand, relies on a mixture of an ionic liquid and dilute acid-both of which can slip past lignin-to dissolve the long chains of sugars in biomass and break them up into individual molecules of glucose and xylose.

Over the course of the reaction, they added water to the mixture to prevent unwanted byproducts from forming. After two rounds of such treatment, a sample of corn stover gave up about 70 percent of its glucose and 79 percent of its xylose, a 75 percent sugar yield overall. From there, the researchers used ion-exclusion chromatography to separate the sugars from the reaction mixture, as well as the ionic liquid, for reuse.

The sugar yields obtained using this method, says Raines, approach those achieved using enzymes to break down raw biomass. And chemicals, he notes, are more robust and less expensive than enzymes-and require no pretreatment of the biomass sample. “In the biofuels race,” says Raines, “I feel this sort of chemical approach has a good shot at winning.”

Raines and Binder subsequently used microbes to ferment the sugars they collected into ethanol. All told, says Raines, using this integrated process, they were able to convert half of the sugars available in plant biomass into liquid fuel.

To make it work at the industrial scale, however, a number of hurdles will need to be overcome, including the near-perfect recovery of the ionic liquid, which is expensive, in order to make the whole process economical. Nevertheless, says Raines, the technology is ready for the right entrepreneur.

“This work could have substantial short-term economic and political impacts,” he says.

Raines’ project was supported by the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, a U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Center located at UW-Madison, as well as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship awarded to Binder.
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-Nicole Miller, (608) 262-3636, nemiller2@wisc.edu

Producing ethanol from corn is relatively easy: the corn’s abundant sugars are readily fermented into alcohol. But using what is essentially a food crop to produce fuel has been criticized as a misuse of resources that can harm both agriculture and the environment.

Better, critics say, to make what is called cellulosic ethanol from leaves and stalks or other crop waste or nonfood crops like switchgrass. The process uses lignocellulose, the basic structural material of all plants and the most abundant organic compound on the planet.

But cellulosic ethanol is more difficult to make. The lignocellulose must first be broken down into sugars, which can then be fermented. Current techniques use costly enzymes or highly concentrated acids that are difficult to handle.

Now, Ronald T. Raines and Joseph B. Binder of the University of Wisconsin are proposing a different way. In a paper in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they describe a process that uses an ionic liquid — a salt with a low melting point — in combination with water and acids at lower concentrations to produce fermentable sugars.

The researchers found that water was the key to making the process efficient. Without water, the sugars produced by the action of the ionic liquid and the acid rapidly degraded into other compounds. But water keeps chloride ions in the salt from further reacting with the sugars.

The researchers say their process produces sugar yields approaching those obtained by enzymatic methods. While much work remains, they say the process may prove useful in converting agricultural waste to a useful fuel.

Note: Raines’ project was supported by The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, a U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Center located at UW-Madison, as well as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship awarded to Binder.

Contact: Jason A. Smith, communications director
jsmith@wisconsinacademy.org / 608-263-1692 ext. 21

MADISON—Did you know that 50 million new cars roll off the assembly line each
year—that’s 137,000 cars a day! If this current growth rate continues, there will be over
1 billion motor vehicles on the world’s roads by 2050. With retail gasoline prices on the
rise and a globally dwindling supply of petroleum, we need to find clean and plentiful
means of fuelling the cars of the future. Will Wisconsin’s pioneering efforts in
bioenergy—fuel derived from such renewable sources as plants, trees, and agricultural
waste—today transform the way we drive and live a generation from now?

Tim Donohue, UW–Madison professor of bacteriology and head of the
Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, discusses the growing field
of bioenergy in the forthcoming Academy Evenings presentation,
What’s Driving My Car? 2050 Biofuels and Other Sustainable Energy
Sources, as part of the Wisconsin Academy’s “Wisconsin 2050:
Pioneering the Future” series of public forums on the events that will
shape our state’s future.

This free Academy Evenings event will be held on March 16, 2010, from 7:00–8:30 pm, at the Madison Museum
of Contemporary Art lecture hall, Overture Center for the Arts in Madison. Seating is first-come, first served. Doors open at 6:15 pm.

The “Wisconsin 2050: Pioneering the Future” Academy Evenings series is sponsored
by the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation,
University of Wisconsin–Madison, M&I Bank, the Evjue Foundation, and Isthmus
Publishing Company.

About Academy Evenings
Academy Evenings engage the public in a wide variety of topics of public interest and
feature Wisconsin’s leading thinkers, scholars, and artists. These free forums are
intended to encourage public interaction with these leaders in an intimate atmosphere
designed to foster discussion and build community. The Wisconsin Academy of
Sciences, Arts and Letters sponsors Academy Evenings regularly in Overture Center
for the Arts in Madison and at other venues across the state. For more information on
Academy Evenings in your area, visit wisconsinacademy.org.

# # #

3/1/2010

CONTACT: Margaret Broeren, mbroeren@glbrc.wisc.edu, (608) 890-2168, Michael Casler, mdcasler@wisc.edu, (608) 890-0065

MADISON – The March issue of BioEnergy Research exclusively focuses on the U.S. Department of Energy-funded Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) and bioenergy research topics ranging from arthropods to cell walls to hydrogen and enzyme improvement.

This is the second of three special issues featuring work from the energy department’s Bioenergy Research Centers.

“This issue provides a snapshot of the diverse range of cutting-edge research within Great Lakes Bioenergy,” says Tim Donohue, GLBRC director and University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of bacteriology. “Readers curious about the latest advances in cellulosic biofuels research will certainly find something that piques their interest.”

The 11 journal articles showcase scientific collaborations at UW-Madison and Michigan State University in four broad research themes: improved biofuels feedstocks, improved conversion into advanced biofuels, sustainable biofuels landscapes, and improved cellulosic biomass processing. Open access to the March issue is available at http://ow.ly/1apjA.

Improved biofuels feedstocks: Committed to improving plant biomass for conversion to liquid fuels, Great Lakes Bioenergy researchers are working to increase energy-rich hydrocarbons in plant tissues and to create plant cell walls that are more easily broken down into their component sugars. Papers contributed by UW-Madison researchers Natalia de Leon, Michael Casler and Chris Schwartz provide a glimpse into the center’s attempts to capitalize on natural genetic mutations to create more suitable feedstocks and methods for deconstructing plant hydrocarbons into liquid fuels.

Improved conversion into advanced biofuels: Scientists are using a variety of natural genetic and genomic approaches to identify organisms and biological systems with unique properties that could increase the efficiency of converting biomass into biofuels. A research group led by UW-Madison engineer Dan Noguera is using a genetic mutant of Rhodobacter sphaeroides to study electron partitioning from nutrients into hydrogen gas.

Sustainable biofuels landscapes: One of the center’s core research areas focuses on the ensuring biological diversity across the agricultural landscape used for bioenergy feedstock production. MSU entomologist Doug Landis’ research group examines abundance and diversity of beneficial insects, including bees, beetles, and flies, in relation to species-richness of cellulosic biofuel crops, while a paper led by MSU microbial ecologist Ederson Jesus examines the mix of bacterial life that lies within the soil.

Improved cellulosic biomass processing: Developing efficient and economical biomass processing technologies will require significant improvements in the properties and combinations of enzymes used to convert plant biomass into liquid fuels. In a review, MSU researcher Goutami Banerjee and his team describe many of the current impediments to bioconversion and the Center’s approaches that include bioprospecting for superior key enzymes, protein engineering and high-level expression in plants. MSU scientist Dahai Gao reports research results of the combination of different enzymes, or enzyme cocktails, and their effect on bioconversion of maize stover.

Finally, the issue highlights high-throughput technology made possible by the center’s enabling technologies group. MSU researcher Nick Santoro describes a robotic platform that provides key measurements that allow researchers to rapidly characterize thousands of plant samples for important traits and bioconversion efficiencies.

About Great Lakes Bioenergy:

The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) is one of three U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Research Centers funded to make transformational breakthroughs that will form the foundation of new cellulosic biofuels technology. The Center is led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with Michigan State University as the major partner.  Additional scientific partners are DOE National Laboratories, other universities and a biotechnology company. For more information, visit http://www.glbrc.org.

About BioEnergy Research:

BioEnergy Research fills a void in the rapidly growing area of feedstock biology research related to biomass, biofuels, and bioenergy. The journal publishes a wide range of articles, including peer-reviewed scientific research, reviews, perspectives and commentary, industry news, and government policy updates. Its coverage brings together a uniquely broad combination of disciplines with a common focus on feedstock biology and science, related to biomass, biofeedstock, and bioenergy production. Open access to this issue is available at: http://ow.ly/1apjA

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Cellulosic ethanol has emerged as a leading candidate biofuel that could contribute significantly to meeting U.S. liquid fuel demand while reducing net greenhouse gas emissions. Feasibility of large-scale cellulosic ethanol production depends not only on the development of cost effective processing methods, but also on the availability of large quantities of cellulosic biomass for conversion to ethanol.

A group of researchers from Michigan State Univ. looked at the expected profitability of six cellulosic feedstock crops is compared with two corn-based systems under southern Great Lakes region conditions over a projected 10-yr period.

At 2006–2009 costs and yields from literature, none would be more profitable than the corn-based systems. Comparative breakeven price analysis identifies the cellulosic feedstock price that would make crops equally profitable with continuous corn. Breakeven prices of cellulose are $110 to $130 Mg–1 for poplar, switchgrass, and mixed grasses.

For miscanthus, breakeven cellulose prices are $200 Mg–1 at current costs, but only $45 Mg–1 if rhizome costs fall to near European levels, well within the range of temporary U.S. farm bill cost share levels for biomass harvest, transportation, and storage.

The researchers state that without targeted subsidies, native prairie and fallow old field systems would not be competitive with corn or the other four cellulosic crops reviewed at current yields and foreseeable prices. Comparative breakeven yields at a cellulose price of $60 Mg–1 would require yield gains above benchmark literature values of 50% for switchgrass, 60% for poplar and mixed grasses, 140% for fallow old fields, 180% for native prairie, and 190% for miscanthus at current rhizome costs, but no added yield for miscanthus with rhizomes at plausible reduced cost.

The impact of a biofuel economy on the U.S. agricultural landscape is potentially huge. To derive a significant portion of U.S. energy use from cellulosic biomass requires a half billion to a billion metric tons of plant products annually. The resulting high demand for land will have unknown consequences for sustaining food and fiber production for human populations, for biodiversity in managed and unmanaged ecosystems, and for the biogeochemical processes that underlie regulation of the biosphere.

The environmental and economic consequences of large-scale cellulosic biomass production will depend in part on which species are cultivated and how they are managed. Profitable production of cellulosic biofuel feedstock is a precondition for large-scale biofuel production to become feasible.

For revenues to exceed costs by itself is not a sufficient condition for growers to switch to cellulosic biomass crops. Farmers will also need to cover the opportunity cost of the crops that are displaced by cellulosic biomass crops.

Broad inquiry into sustainable cellulosic biomass production should include a range of biomass sources, including trees, mixed grasses, native prairie, and natural succession species.

The researchers state that economic studies of biofuel feedstocks have tended to focus on the most promising crops, often corn stover, switchgrass, and recently miscanthus. Different studies have shown costs per unit dry matter for corn stover and miscanthus to be lower than that estimated for switchgrass production.

The research group state that at current yields and foreseeable prices, the profitability of dedicated cellulosic biofuel crops in the southern Great Lakes region falls far short of continuous corn. The value of the corn grain product makes corn stover the likely cellulosic feedstock for this region under a wide range of cost, price, and output scenarios.

The opportunity cost of continuous corn, a major factor in the breakeven prices and yields estimated by the researchers, hinges on soil fertility. Yet the yield and associated profitability of annual row crops such as corn and soybean is particularly sensitive to field conditions including slope, soil type, and fertility levels. The profitability of these row crops can be greatly reduced on marginal lands. Little information is currently available on the profitability of cellulosic biomass crops relative to corn under marginal field conditions, where the perennial root systems of switchgrass, miscanthus, and poplar may provide a significant yield advantage.

The researchers state that among feedstock crops, the most likely cellulosic feedstock alternative to corn stover is miscanthus, despite the fact that it is the least competitive given current input costs in the United States. If reduced rhizome costs can be realized, then miscanthus already breaks even at current expected yields and the assumed price of $60 Mg–1. Though not yet a reality, what makes this possibility significant is that the cost reduction has already been demonstrated in European markets.

The researchers state that, in conclusion, most current perennial, dedicated cellulosic biomass crops are unlikely to displace corn on cropland in the southern Great Lakes region at foreseeable prices for cellulosic biomass.

The one exception that potentially could compete with corn is miscanthus if produced using low-cost rhizomes, although more agronomic experience is needed to verify its winter hardiness, potential invasiveness, and pest susceptibility.

The potential for profitable production of dedicated cellulosic biomass crops may be greater on non-crop land where opportunity costs to the grower may be lower. They state that further research is needed into the production possibilities of biofuel crops on lands not currently used for intensive crop farming.

From:

Profitability Analysis of Cellulosic Energy Crops Compared with Corn
Laura K. James, Scott M. Swinton, and Kurt D. Thelen

Agronomy Journal 102:675-687, Published online 27 Jan. 2010

Dep. of Crop and Soil Sci., Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI 48824. All authors are also affiliated with DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, Michigan State University. Received 30 July 2009. Corresponding author (swintons@msu.edu).

View the abstract:
https://www.agronomy.org/files/publications/agronomy-journal/abstracts/102-2/aj09-0289-abstract.pdf

See also the recent USDA press release, Biomass Crop Assistance Program to Spur Production of Renewable Energy, Job Creation.

Related coverage in Ethanol Weekly: http://www.ethanolproducer.com/takingstalk/post.jsp?blogPostID=73

Photo of switchgrass.

January 31 2010, 7:01 AM CST

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Efficient biofuels made from plant fiber could be an important part of the fight against the greenhouse gases now causing our world to heat up, Michigan State University researchers say.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mi-foddertofuel,0,3072294.story

Visit chicagotribune.com at http://www.chicagotribune.com

Contact: Jamie M. DePolo, Office of Biobased Technologies, Office: (609) 702-7810, Cell: (609) 354-8403, depolo@msu.edu; Doug Landis, Entomology, landisd@msu.edu, Office: 517-353-1829

Cameron R. Currie, an associate professor of bacteriology, was among the 100 scientists honored on Jan. 13 as recipients of this year’s Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. It’s the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on scientists in the early stages of independent research careers. Currie was nominated by the National Science Foundation. Award winners receive up to a five-year research grant to continue their studies.

Currie’s research focuses on the ecology and evolution of symbiotic associations between animals and microbes. His main study system is the complex association between fungus-growing ants, their fungal cultivars, mutualistic bacteria, and specialized garden pathogens. In his research for the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, Currie looks to the community of fungus-farming ants to for clues on how to break down biomass for biofuels.

January 2010
Contact: Craig Canham
Corporate Public Relations, Future Science Group
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8371 6092
Email: c.canham@future-science.com

Launched in January 2010, Biofuels is the first of a new range of environmental science titles
published by Future Science. This peer-reviewed journal is devoted to the rapid publication of
new findings and topical commentary in biofuel research. Future Science is part of the Londonbased
Future Science Group.

Biofuels provides a forum for all stakeholders in the bioenergy sector, featuring original research,
review articles, commentaries, news and much more, with a view to establishing an international
forum for biofuel research and communication.

Biofuels research is progressing at an unprecedented rate, with the development of new feed
stocks and improvements in production processes providing the key to the transformation of
biomass into a global energy resource. Published on a bimonthly basis, Biofuels will report key
developments and place these advances in context during this exciting evolution.

The editorial direction of Biofuels is the responsibility of Senior Editors Yusuf Christi (Massey
University, New Zealand) and Timothy Donohue (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA). The
Senior Editors are supported by a team of two Associate Editors, together with an Advisory Panel
of more than thirty international experts.

Senior Editor Yusuf Christi said, “Environmental, economic and social sustainability are
inseparably linked to a sustainable supply of energy. As readily useable, potentially
environmentally benign and a renewable form of energy, biofuels are poised to contribute to our
energy supply in a meaningful way“. He concluded that, “….the journal Biofuels intends to be at
the forefront of the emerging developments on all aspects of biofuels.”

All articles submitted to the journal are subject to peer review by three, or more, independent
assessors. Elisa Manzotti, Editorial Director at Future Science said, “There has been a
phenomenal response to requests for manuscript submissions by Yusuf Christi & Timothy
Donohue, indicating just how much interest there is in this exciting and emerging field. Our launch
issue contains more than two hundred pages of insightful commentary”.

She added, “The journal marks the perfect beginning of the environmental science portfolio at
Future Science, and further details of this expanding programme will follow in due course.”
Biofuels publishes reviews, original research, perspectives, commentary and news & views for
the biofuels community. Biofuels articles are highly structured and illustrated, and presented in
highly accessible formats. The launch issue, its contents of the launch issue can be viewed at
http://www.future-science.com/r/bfs.

For complimentary access to all articles in the launch issue please contact
Craig Canham, +44 (0) 20 8371 6092; c.canham@future-science.com
– ENDS –

For further information please contact:
Craig Canham, Corporate Public Relations, Future Science Group
T: +44 (0) 20 8371 6092 F: +44 (0) 20 8343 2313 E: c.canham@future-science.com

NOTES FOR EDITORS
ABOUT FUTURE SCIENCE GROUP
The Future Science Group (www.future-science-group.com) is an expanding group of
independent publishing companies active in the field of scientific information and endeavor,
including Expert Reviews Ltd (formerly known as Future Drugs Ltd) Future Medicine Ltd and
Future Science Ltd. As a leading provider of products and services for the medical, science and
business communities, we present the most important scientific breakthroughs in an accessible
and evaluated format, while at the same time providing the scientific community with unique
vehicles for disseminating forward-thinking research information and data. Future Science is a
pioneer in publications associated with pharmaceutical science, chemistry and environmental
science. Complete listings of titles under each imprint are available at www.expert-reviews.com,
www.futuremedicine.com and www.future-science.com.

EDITOR’S NOTE: An image is available for download at http://www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/queenAntGarden09.html

CONTACT: Cameron Currie, 608-265-8034, currie@bact.wisc.edu; Garret Suen, 608-890-0237, gsuen@wisc.edu

MADISON – Leaf-cutter ants, which cultivate fungus for food, have many remarkable qualities.

Here’s a new one to add to the list: the ant farmers, like their human counterparts, depend on nitrogen-fixing bacteria to make their gardens grow. The finding, reported this week (Nov. 20) in the journal Science, documents a previously unknown symbiosis between ants and bacteria and provides insight into how leaf-cutter ants have come to dominate the American tropics and subtropics.

queen_ant_garden09

“Nitrogen is a limiting resource,” says Garret Suen, a UW-Madison postdoctoral fellow and a co-author of the new study. “If you don’t have it, you can’t survive.”

Indeed, the partnership between ant and microbe permits leaf-cutters to be amazingly successful. Their underground nests, some the size of small houses, can harbor millions of inhabitants. In the Amazon forest they comprise four times more biomass than do all land animals combined.

“This is the first indication of bacterial garden symbionts in the fungus-growing ant system,” says Currie, a UW-Madison professor of bacteriology.

A critical finding in the new study, according to the Wisconsin scientist, is that the nitrogen, which is extracted from the air by the bacteria, ends up in the ants themselves and, ultimately, benefits the nitrogen-poor ecosystems where the ants thrive.

The fungus-growing ants, Currie notes, are technically herbivores. They make their living by carving up foliage and carrying it back to their nests in endless columns to provide the raw material for the fungus they grow as food. “But plant-feeding insects are known to be nitrogen limited,” explains Currie, “and the plant biomass nitrogen is lower than what the insects need for survival.”

Also see this research featured in Wired.

Enter the nitrogen-fixing bacteria, two species of which were isolated in laboratory and field colonies of the ants. But merely finding the bacteria, Suen emphasizes, wasn’t enough. It was necessary to prove that the ants were actually utilizing the nutrient to confirm a true mutualism.

“This is important because it could be that the bacteria are fixing nitrogen for themselves and not actually benefiting the ants,” says Suen. “Showing that the nitrogen fixed by the bacteria is incorporated into the ants establishes that these bacteria aren’t just transient visitors.”

One other type of insect, the termite, has been previously shown to utilize nitrogen-fixing bacteria. And other bacteria-ant symbioses have been documented.

However, the discovery of the nitrogen-fixing mutualism in ants has significant ecological implications given the dominance of ants in virtually all of the word’s terrestrial ecosystems. The new work suggests that an important source of nitrogen in the American tropics and subtropics is derived through the partnership of ant and bacteria.

Says Currie: “It is possible that this fixed nitrogen can have ecosystem scale impacts.”

The partnership with bacteria, which Currie says could extend back to the origins of the gardening ants some 50 million years ago, confers a competitive edge that has permitted the leaf-cutters to prevail in their environments.

Says Suen: “Without nitrogen, there is no way these guys could achieve such large colony sizes. These ants are one of the most dominant insects in the Neotropics. The ability to have colonies with millions of ants is predicted to require a tremendous amount of nitrogen.”

The new study was funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy through the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center and the National Science Foundation. In addition to Currie and Suen, the new study was co-authored by Adrian A Pinto-Tomas now of the University of Costa Rica; Mark A. Anderson, Fiona S. T. Chu and W. Wallace Cleland of UW-Madison; and David M. Stevenson and Paul J. Weimer of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Dairy Forage Research Center.
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- Terry Devitt, 608-262-8282, trdevitt@wisc.edu