Enzyme cocktail could eliminate a step in biofuel process

Conversion of biomass to fuel requires several steps: chemical pretreatment to break up the biomass – often dilute (sulfuric) acid, detoxification to remove the toxic chemicals required in pretreatment, and microbial fermentation to convert the soluble sugars to fuels. Virginia Tech researchers have discovered an enzyme mixture that works in the presence of the toxic infused liquid biomass (hydrolysate), meaning that the detoxification step is unnecessary, reducing the cost of producing biofuels as well as increasing biofuel yields by avoiding the production of by-products and synthesis of cell mass.

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