An alternative energy company called SunEthanol based in Massachusetts, US, hit the headlines earlier this year when it claimed to have found a naturally occurring organism called "Microbe Q" that could convert waste biomass such as corn stalks, sawdust and grass cuttings into ethanol.
This is important because bioethanol could replace petrol as a fuel for internal combustion engines. Ethanol can already be made from biomass, but requires a multistage process employing enzymes to break down the cellulose before the biomass sugars can be fermented.
Now the company has filed a patent application for an industrial process that employs a microbe called Clostridium phytofermentans. The organism was discovered by company co-founder Susan Leschine and colleague Tom Warnick from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, US, in soil near the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts.
They say this naturally occurring anaerobic microbe can produce ethanol in a composting tank, in which biomass is fermented in the presence of the microbe. The process works without the need for enzymes of any kind, making it potentially cheaper than other approaches.
The company has already attracted funding from several investors.
Read the full Q microbe patent application.
Justin Mullins