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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]

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