Bioenergy research

An investment of £27m in bioenergy research has been announced by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

The money will support six research hubs of academic and industrial partners, one based at each of Cambridge, Dundee and York Universities, two at Nottingham as well as one at Rothamsted Research. Another seven universities and institutes are also involved, and 15 industrial partners across the hubs are contributing around £7m of the funding.

The research activities will cover many different stages of bioenergy production, from widening the range of materials that can be used as the starting point for bioenergy, to making the crops used for fuel production grow more efficiently.

At Cambridge University, researchers aim to develop strategies to improve the process of obtaining sugar from plants, so that more can be extracted from them. These sugars could then be converted to biofuels to power cars.

In addition, the Cambridge researchers will work with those at Rothamsted Research to improve the yields of fast growing trees and grasses and to make more of the plants’ carbon available for conversion into biofuels.