UC breakthrough aims to make biofuel cheaper

Researchers from the University of Cincinnati and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory achieved a breakthrough in understanding the vulnerability of microbes to the alcohols they produce during fermentation of plant biomass.

With the national lab’s neutron scattering and simulation equipment, the team analyzed fermentation of the biofuel butanol, an energy-packed alcohol that also can be used as a solvent or chemical feedstock.

Lead author Luoxi Tan, a doctoral graduate of UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science, is continuing this collaboration as a postdoctoral researcher at the national laboratory. He said researchers now will look to see if they can make biofuel more efficiently by stabilizing the membranes of the cells in the biomass.

“(The findings) provide us with new targets to reduce the influence of these fermentation products,” Tan said. 

Researchers investigated the processes occurring during fermentation using neutron scattering experiments that allow for non-destructive testing of the membrane, letting scientists see the structures and arrangements of molecules.

“Neutrons give you the ability to probe the interior of the membrane to help determine how the butanol is distributed,” said Hugh O’Neill, director of the Center for Structural Molecular Biology at Oak Ridge.

Researchers used supercomputers to perform molecular dynamics simulations to examine how atoms and molecules move and interact over time.

Nickels said these tools allowed researchers to see what’s happening to the structure of a cell’s membrane at the molecular level.

“The findings have very relevant and meaningful long-term implications,” Nickels said. “We want to make biofuels more efficient, which would have significant economic outcomes.”

Nickels said he is proud of his longtime collaboration with Oak Ridge.

“It’s a great collaboration. Working with world-leading scientists and staff at a national lab is a tremendous privilege. And it provides inspiration and an environment for great work for a student's doctoral research.”

The project was funded by the national lab’s Center for Structural Molecular Biology and the DOE Office of Science’s Solvent Disruption of Biomass and Biomembranes Science Focus Area, also known as the Biofuels SFA, led by Oak Ridge.

Featured image at top: UC collaborated with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory on research examining ways to improve the efficiency of biofuel. Photo/Unsplash