New wood-to-sugar biofuel method heats up

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in Germany have announced a new method of producing high efficiency and easily available biofuels from wood, grass and plants could soon be available.

The researchers have devised a more effective method of breaking down the cellulose found in plants into sugar molecules, which can then be used to produce ethanol.

The method uses an ionic liquid to first break down cellulose into shorter glucose chains, and then a solid acid resin to split those shorter chains into individual sugar molecules that can then be used for biofuels.

'Even very tough microcrystalline cellulose can be broken down into sugar molecules using this approach,' lead researcher Ferdi Schath of the Max Planck Institute in Mulheim comments. 'With this method, you can even use wood at the beginning of the process. That is why this approach really can be said to allow wood to be converted directly into sugar.'

So far, breaking apart the linkages that hold sugar molecules together in cellulose in plants and wood has been difficult, and as a result they have not been readily available for biofuels.