Getting fungi to make biodiesel efficiently at room temperature
Forget appleseed reactors and giant production plants, here's the new way for cool kids to make biodiesel: fungi at room temperature.According to WIRED, scientists at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology have discovered you can use sunflower oil, methanol and an enzyme in Metarhizium anisopliae fungal spores to make biodiesel "with impressive efficiency." Scientist Ravichandra Potumarthi presented the process - which eliminates the need to heat the methanol, lye and veggie oil - at the International Conference on Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. If Potumarthi's system becomes widespread, it'll be great to reconfigure all of biodiesel's "well"-to-wheel efficiency numbers in future head-to-head alt-fuel studies.
[Source: WIRED, thanks to Howard for sending this in]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Turbofrog 12:33AM (8/23/2007)
I've been reading hopefully about algal biodiesel for a while now, and it certainly looks like it holds promise. I hate to count my chickens before they've hatched, especially when it comes to alternative fuels, but this certainly looks like a promising development.
To let my imagination run slightly wild, with a turbobiodiesel series plug-in electric hybrid we may actually have a relatively sustainable form of automotive transportation. Who'd have thunk it...
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