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| Biofuel: The Green Energy |
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| Begin to imagine for a moment that it is possible to produce sufficient fuel to run power plants, and even our city’s transportation grids from natural resources that may just be ecologically friendly. Think about the fuels could be derived from part of the wastes that may plague our landscape and threaten to overflow from landfills into our pristine environment. Does it sound improbable? But this idyllic scenario might just be commonplace in the future. The plant waste materials that are churned out by our oil palm refineries, and other agriculture processing plants, are made up of cellulose, a tough carbon-rich material, commonly found in plants. More often than not, these waste materials may just find their way to the landfill, or in a relatively eco-friendly scenario, be included in paper pulp. |
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| Dr. Kan Mun Seng of Monash University believes that there is greater potential for our cellulosic waste, and precedes it with his research in the biochemical reactions of carbohydrate degradation in relation to amylase activity in bacteria. “The carbohydrate degradation reactions have the potential of allowing the multi steps breaking down of cellulosic materials into simple sugars like glucose. This in turn may be used to fuel bioreactors of fermenting bacteria which will convert such materials to form ethanol for bio-fuels,” added Dr. Kan.
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| Dr. Kan Mun Seng | ||||||
Dr.
Kan and his research team have been able to clone the gene responsible
for expressing amylase, a digestive enzyme which breaks down starches
into simple sugars. This is done through molecular gene cloning procedures,
in which the desired gene is extracted from bacteria. |
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Currently, the research group focus is on the optimisation procedures of amylase production with the use of bio reactors. Similarly related enzymes in carbohydrate degradation like cellulase, pullulanase and xylose isomerase are also being investigated. |
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The
prospects of bio-ethanol based fuels have been realised in Brazil since
the 1970s, in which sugarcane-based ethanol has been utilised by the
Brazilian government as a response to the uncertain oil market. Such
fuels are relatively cost-effective, and significant cost savings ease
the tight purse-strings of the Brazilians. In fact, analysts are confident
that Brazil will become energy independent by the end of the year. |
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| As for the current effort by Monash University’s research team, much hope is being expressed, especially with the recent interest in bio-fuels among the Malaysian biotechnology industr and the government. Conveying his optimism, Dr Kan articulated that, “We hope to see the adaptation of our latent technology by the industry and industry players in the near future. There is so much potential, and we hope that we will be able to partner with them, in the manner of providing the expertise and knowledge while the industry increases the commercial viability of our work.” |
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| By K. C. Liew for MABIC | ||||||
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