Identifying, characterising and engineering plant cell wall degrading enzymes for biofuel production

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The world's fossil fuel resources are being depleted around the world as an energy source, becoming a major contributor to green house gas emissions. Therefore, cleaner, and greener strategies to supply the worlds energy demands are becoming more and more pressing. The production of biofuels from biomass (sourced from waste products, i.e., spent grain, materials sourced from forestry/paper productions etc.) is a way to produce a greener energy with lower emissions, providing a strategy to combat the worlds energy demand. The waste biomass is built out of the carbohydrate molecules cellulose and hemicellulose, providing a source for biofuel production. The production of biofuels from these waste materials requires physical and or chemical pretreatment to initiate the breakdown of the recalcitrant carbohydrate material before saccharisation occurs through treatment with carbohydrate active enzymes (CAZymes). Following, the monosaccharides provided are then fermented into suitable biofuel products including ethanol and butanol. The CAZymes used in this project will be sourced from thermophilic bacterial species, finding suitable 'enzymatic cocktails' to process the carbohydrates into simple monosaccharides for fermentation.