Dundee scientists are behind a discovery that could revolutionise car and plane travel.
Biofuels are seen by many as a direct alternative to traditional fossil fuels which, it is feared, are quickly running out.
Now a breakthrough by boffins at Dundee University and the James Hutton Institute shows fast-growing plants such as poplar, eucalyptus and sugarcane can be used to make biofuels.
Their study has centred on lignin, a substance in plants which makes it tricky to extract the sugar molecules needed for fuel production.
The Scottish researchers, based at Invergowrie and Aberdeen, teamed up with colleagues in Belgium and the USA for the probe.
They found that an enzyme called CSE plays a major role in producing lignin. Getting rid of the gene that makes the enzyme reduces the amount of lignin in a plant and makes it much easier to get to the sugar, which is contained in cellulose.
Professor Claire Halpin, from the university, said: “It looks like it could be very useful in trying to manipulate plant biomass to generate biofuels and other chemicals from non-food crops.
“Our studies showed that in the plant we studied arabidopsis those with mutated CSE were able to release around four times as much more cellulose.
“When growth differences for the plants are factored in, this amounts to around three times as
much biomass from each plant.”
Her colleague Dr Gordon Simpson, who also works at the James Hutton Institute, said: “It has taken an international collaboration that combined expertise in plant genetics, biochemistry and chemical analysis to make sense of this discovery.”
The findings, which have been published by online journal Science Express, could now be used to test natural populations of energy crops to find ones where the gene for making CSE does not work.
Alternatively, genetic engineering could be used to produce crops with low lignin levels.
Some of the funding for the research came from the Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford University in California.
Its director, Sally Benson, said: “This exciting, fundamental discovery provides an alternative pathway for altering lignin in plants and has the potential to greatly increase the efficiency of energy crop conversion for biofuels.
“We have been so pleased to support this team of world leaders in lignin research and to see the highly successful outcome of these projects.”