Editors:
- Provides an overview of the many exciting advances that have been made in utilizing the wonderful resources in the plant world
- Discusses the technology needed to produce ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass
- Presents the use of mutagenesis, breeding and selection, and transgenic strategies
- Discusses genetic and biotechnological approaches that can be implemented to improve biomass conversion efficiency for a number of relevant agronomic crops and tree species
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Table of contents (15 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Part I
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Front Matter
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Part II
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
Ethanol as an alternative fuel is receiving a lot of attention because it addresses concerns related to dwindling oil supplies, energy independence, and climate change. The majority of the ethanol in the US is produced from corn starch. With the US Department of Energy’s target that 30% of the fuel in the US is produced from renewable resources by 2030, the anticipated demand for corn starch will quickly exceed the current production of corn. This, plus the concern that less grain will become available for food and feed purposes, necessitates the use of other feedstocks for the production of ethanol. For the very same reasons, there is increasing research activity and growing interest in many other biomass crops.
Genetic Improvement of Bio-Energy Crops focuses on the production of ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass, which includes corn stover, biomass from dedicated annual and perennial energy crops, and trees as well as a number of important biomass crops. The biomass is typically pretreated through thermochemical processing to make it more amenable to hydrolysis with cellulolytic enzymes. The enzymatic hydrolysis yields monomeric sugars that can be fermented to ethanol by micro-organisms. While much emphasis has been placed on the optimization of thermo-chemical pretreatment processes, production of more efficient hydrolytic enzymes, and the development of robust microbial strains, relatively little effort has been dedicated to the improvement of the biomass itself.
Editors and Affiliations
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University of Florida, Gainesville, USA
Wilfred Vermerris
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Genetic Improvement of Bioenergy Crops
Editors: Wilfred Vermerris
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-70805-8
Publisher: Springer New York, NY
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life Sciences, Biomedical and Life Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer-Verlag New York 2008
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-387-70804-1
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4419-2422-3
eBook ISBN: 978-0-387-70805-8
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXII, 450
Number of Illustrations: 28 b/w illustrations, 7 illustrations in colour
Topics: Agriculture, Plant Genetics and Genomics, Plant Sciences, Plant Biochemistry