Secrets of biofuel composition unravelled by scientists

More of the secrets of biofuel composition and how it is affected by lignin are being discovered by scientists in the US.

At the Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, researchers are working on the construction process of plant cell walls.

It is this process - which helps to make the plants robust during growth - that impairs biofuel composition due to difficulty in breaking down biomass.

However, the team have now identified ATP-binding cassette transporters, which control how the "molecular currency" of cell energy, adenosine triphosphate, is taken up by the plant.

"Being able to manipulate lignin biosynthesis would have a great influence on our ability to produce renewable biofuels from plant cellulosic feedstocks," says lead author on the study Chang-Jun Liu.

Brookhaven National Laboratory was established in 1947 and located on Long Island, New York; it now has 3,000 engineers and support staff and some 4,000 further guest contributors globally.