Indiana University biologists believe they found a faster, cleaner, cheaper way to increase bioethanol production by using nitrogen gas. How they found it, though, was sort of an accident.
A team led by biologist Jake McKinlay believes the discovery could save cellulosic ethanol plants about $1 million a year.
"I'm sure these plants could find a lot to do with that million dollars," McKinlay said.
Cellulosic ethanol is a type of biofuel, like corn ethanol. The difference is cellulosic ethanol is made from things such as wood, grass and the inedible parts of plants.
"It eliminates the fuel versus food argument," McKinlay said, referring to a common criticism of ethanol made from edible grains such as corn.
However, cellulosic ethanol is struggling to be cost-competitive against grain ethanol and gasoline. The largest cost contributors to cellulosic ethanol production are cellulosic plant material and the enzymes needed to degrade the plant material into sugars that are converted into ethanol. Nitrogen fertilizers are a smaller, but considerable cost, McKinlay said.
Ethanol-producing microbes need nitrogen to grow. Unfortunately, the raw materials for cellulosic ethanol are low in nitrogen. To address this, cellulosic ethanol producers spend millions of dollars a year on nitrogen fertilizers such as corn steep liquor and diammonium phosphate. Soon, they might only need a little Zymomonas mobilis.
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