Posted on 11/21/2007 12:40:10 PM PST by Red Badger
A team of US scientists poring over the intestines of a tropical termite have a gut feeling that a breakthrough in the quest for cleaner, renewable petrol is in store.
Tucked in the termite's nether regions, they say, is a treasure trove of enzymes that could make next-generation biofuels, replacing fossil fuels that are dirty, pricey or laden with geopolitical risk.
Termites are typically a curse, inflicting billions of dollars in damage each year by munching through household timber with silent, relentless ease.
But gene researchers say the hind gut of a species of Central American termite "harbour a potential gold mine" of microbes which exude enzymes to smoothly break down woody fibres and provide the insect with its nutrition.
Present-generation biofuels are derived from corn, sugar and other crops, whose starch is converted into ethanol by enzymes, fermentation and distillation.
One of the problems, though, is that this product entails converting food into fuel. Hefty US subsidies to promote bio-ethanol is having price repercussions across swathes of the global food market.
Next-generation biofuels, though, would use non-food cellulose materials, such as wood chips and straw. But these novel processes, hampered by costs and complications, are struggling to reach a commercial scale.
The termite's tummy, though, could make all the difference.
Like cows, termites have a series of intestinal compartments that each nurture a distinct community of microbes.
Each compartment does a different job in the process to convert woody polymers into the kind of sugars that can then be fermented into biofuel.
The US team has now sequenced and analyzed the genetic code of some of these microbes in a key step towards -- hopefully -- reproducing the termite's miniature bioreactor on an industrial scale.
Their work, published on Wednesday in Nature, required scientists to venture into the rainforests of Costa Rica, where they plucked bulbous-headed worker termites from a large nest at the foot of a tree.
Using fine forceps and needles, they extracted the contents of the third paunch, or hind gut, from 165 termites, and sent this to a lab in California for sequencing.
From this, some 71 million "letters" of genetic code emerged, pointing to two major bacterial lineages called fibrobacters, which degrade cellulose, and treponemes, which convert the result to fermentable sugars.
Termite guts are incredibly efficient, said Andreas Brune of the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg, Germany.
"In theory, they could transform an A4-sized sheet of paper into two liters (1.8 pints) of hydrogen," he said.
Eddy Rubin, director of the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), an organisation that comes under the aegis of the US Department of Energy, said an important fundamental step had been made, even if a long road still lay ahead.
"Scaling up this process so that biomass factories can produce biofuels more efficiently and economically is another story," said Rubin.
"To get there, we must define the set of genes with key functional attributes for the breakdown of cellulose and this study represents an essential step along that path."
Other scientists taking part in the project were from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), biofuels company Verenium Corp., the National Biodiversity Institute (INBio) of Costa Rica and the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center.
I think the idea is to get the chemical formulas for the enzymes and produce them on an industrial scale to use in bio-reactors to convert cellulose wastes to fuels, instead of using food sources.............
Why extract the enzyme? Why not just use the whole termite?
Which is why that isn't the goal. Presumably, once the key enzymes are identified, they'll look for easier ways to produce them. That could involve genetically engineering bacteria to produce large quantities of the enzymes.
Yea but the whole point is to reproduce the enzymatic process on a synthetic, industrial scale.
Here is a link to some information about a plant named Jathropa which seems to have some biofuel potential. Advocates claim jathropa can be grown on land which is not suitable for food crops.
http://www.ecoworld.com/home/articles2.cfm?tid=353
Sounds to me like they are looking to synthesize the enzyme these termite bacteria use. Mix that juice with your grass clippings, shake gently, and add to the gas tank. ;~))
I don't know if this particular deal is feasible -- could be -- but my hunch is that the replacement for oil will be discovered using biological processes. With genetic engineering, a lot of new possibilities are opening.
Junk mail into gasoline? Go for it!
Because it’s a series of stomachs and a series of enzymes that break down the cellulose. The process is like a refinery for cellulose, only in a miniature package. The microbes that live in the termites gut are responsible for the enzyme production in a symbiotic relationship with the termite. We may be able to breed the microbes ourselves in large quantities and forgo the need for the termite.............
FReeper Sstephenjohnbanker is currently in process of building bio-diesel plant using Jatropha .........
Enzymes are biological catalysts, which means that they enable reactions without being consumed by them. Producing a pint of ethanol wouldn't require a pint of enzyme.
Because the termite uses up most of the energy produced, just to stay alive.
“genetically engineering bacteria to produce large quantities of the enzymes.”
What happens if the bacteria get loose? It’d be like that ad where all the plastic disappears! The end of life as we know it! Bwaaahaha!
Enzymes are biological catalysts, which means that they enable reactions without being consumed by them. Producing a pint of ethanol wouldn't require a pint of enzyme.
I don’t know, wouldn’t this just create a bigger demand for the cellulose waste, which might be used as fertilizers or animal feed, or paper? Might the huge demand that fuel production creates just cause farmers to plant fast growing, high cellulose crops, supplanting food? Would forests be targeted, and the paper/lumber industries suffer? It seems to me that unless its just stuff thats going to a landfill anyway, then its going to have unintended consequences for other markets, just like the whole “food into fuel” thing is now.
If that's not an argument for termite limits....
Because they digest the useful products of degradation?
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