VATIS UPDATE Article

Scientists at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) – Kharagpur, India, have unlocked the secret to ramp up yields of biofuel sourced from commonly found aquatic weeds such as water hyacinths. In a new study published in Nature Scientific Reports, researchers have shown that this weed – which contains up to 50 percent hemicelluloses – can now be used as an economic and abundant source of biofuel. “We showed that the secret to rapidly producing soluble sugars from amorphous natural polymers such as hemicelluloses lies in their smallest scale-the pores,” said Saikat Chakraborty, at IIT – Kharagpur.

Chakraborty and Sajal Kanti Dutta have uncovered the pore-scale phenomena that result in “fourfold increase in the yields of fermentable sugars and bioethanol” from hemicelluloses. “It turns out that three quarters of the soluble sugars we obtain for generation of bioethanol are produced from the pore-scale reactions. So increasing the polymer’s porosity and degree of swelling will enhance the deconstruction of hemicelluloses from plant cell walls, thus increasing bioethanol,” added Chakraborty.