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Microbial Glycoside Hydrolases for Biomass Utilization in Biofuels Applications

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Biofuel Technologies

Abstract

Renewable biomass is predicted to have the potential to meet at least a quarter of the world demand for transportation fuel, but to do so both terrestrial lignocellulosic as well as marine algal resources need to be efficiently utilized. In the processes where these biomasses are converted into different types of energy carriers (for example fuel-alcohols e.g. ethanol or butanol) microbial glycoside hydrolases (GHs) have a role in the saccharification process. During saccharification polymeric carbohydrate resources (e.g. starch, cellulose or hemicellulose) are hydrolyzed into mono and oligosaccharides that can be utilized by the organism selected to ferment these carbohydrates into the desired energy-carrier. This chapter aims to shed light on different processing alternatives for the conversion of lignocellulose or algal starch into mono or oligosaccharides, and what roles the microbial GHs have as processing aids in these conversions.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support from the Swedish research council Formas (project 243-2008-2196) and (229-2009-1527, for the collaborative research program SureTech) and the EU FP7 research-program AMYLOMICS is greatly appreciated.

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  1. Biotechnology Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, Lund University, P.O. Box 124, SE-22100, Lund, Sweden

    Gashaw Mamo, Reza Faryar & Eva Nordberg Karlsson

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  1. Gashaw Mamo
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Correspondence to Eva Nordberg Karlsson .

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  1. , Department of Biochemistry, National University of Ireland Galway, University Road, Galway, N/A, Ireland

    Vijai Kumar Gupta

  2. , Department of Biochemistry, National University of Ireland Galway, University Road, Galway, N/A, Ireland

    Maria G. Tuohy

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Mamo, G., Faryar, R., Karlsson, E.N. (2013). Microbial Glycoside Hydrolases for Biomass Utilization in Biofuels Applications. In: Gupta, V., Tuohy, M. (eds) Biofuel Technologies. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34519-7_7

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