Highlights

Fermilab experiment discovers a heavy relative of the neutron
Industrial-scale carbon storage runs to ground
Consortium to evaluate impacts of shale gas production using hydraulic fracturing
Molecular model helps expose cellulose weakness
A plan to produce electricity and trap carbon at the same time
Predicting plutonium’s solubility
Profile - Ament part of the next generation of rare-earth researchers
Feature - Free-electron laser light enables research on extreme dating and efficient diesel

Number 344 |
August 22, 2011

Molecular model helps expose cellulose weakness

Cellulose

Cellulose.

Researchers at DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory and at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center have found a potential key for unlocking the energy potential from non-edible biomass materials such as corn leaves and stalks, or switch grass.

In a paper appearing in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Los Alamos researchers S. Gnanakaran, Giovanni Bellesia, and Paul Langan join Shishir Chundawat and Bruce Dale of Michigan State University, and collaborators from the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center in describing a potential pretreatment method that can make plant cellulose five times more digestible by enzymes that convert it into ethanol, a useful biofuel.

[James E. Rickman, 505.665.9203,
jamesr@lanl.gov]