Transgenic Switchgrass to Produce 40 % More Ethanol

A step that aims to increase ethanol production as well as reducing production costs using genetic modification in switchgrass. Breakthrough conducted by researchers at the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation and Fermentation Research at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory that allows common switchgrass to produce one-third more ethanol using a fermentation process.

Step of genetic modification has made changes to several production steps that support for production cost savings. The pre-processing phase in transgenic switchgrass only need less heat than common switchgrass. Later in the fermentation process will use a purified enzyme from bacteria to break down sugar into alcohol.

The discovery of this step is preceded by the creation of a DNA fragment from the observations on gene mutations in a number of plants that have resulted in reduced lignin production. Besides the reduction of lignin production, gene mutations also have increased production of ethanol.

Genetically modified crops declared safe to use because it only causes discoloration on switchgrass. But security in the use of this technology will continue to be observed in a longer period of time until its really proven to be safe.