Researchers with the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) have employed a promising technique for improving the ability of cellulase enzymes to operate at advantageously high temperatures.

Using an ultrahigh-precision microscopy technique, Berkeley Lab
researchers have uncovered a way to improve the collective catalytic activity of enzyme cocktails on cellulosic biomass, boosting the yields of sugars for the production of advanced biofuels.

Berkeley Lab researchers have shown that a fermentation process used in World War I to make cordite for bullets and artillery shells, in combination with a modern palladium catalyst could produce gasoline, diesel or jet fuel from the sugars found in biomass.