Use enzymes to make biofuel without displacing food crops

http://phys.org/news/2013-11-crafting-enzyme-cocktail-fuel-faster.html

the link talks about the idea of using enzymes to make biofuel out of plant material that is plentiful but is not actual food thus this would not displace food crops (which is often one of the main problems with biofuel production ) . I really think they've got the right idea here -I had independently thought of exactly the same idea although I guessed someone else would bound to have thought of it well before I did for it stands to pretty basic reason in part because enzymes work at room temperature and pressure which, unlike with traditional manufacturing, should mean pretty low energy input to make the process work.

I believe, in the far future, most of traditional manufacturing for most products and materials, not just biofuel, will be replaced with mainly enzyme-driven processing because that will produce massive energy savings and make everything from microchips to solar panels to cars to whole houses a minuscule fraction of their current cost!
But there will be a few exceptions to that because, with a few exceptions, enzymes generally usually need all their reactants (but not necessarily their products ) to have at least least some significant solubility in water. For example, it probably would not be practical to turn silicon dioxide into silicon hydroxide although the reverse process could easily be done with an enzyme designed especially for that job.
I have heard of the existence of some oil-soluble enzymes that can drive chemical reactions in oil-soluble reactants without the presence of water so that might also be useful for chemically precessing some substances with no solubility in water providing they have some reasonable solubility in oil.

Originally posted by humy
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-crafting-enzyme-cocktail-fuel-faster.html

the link talks about the idea of using enzymes to make biofuel out of plant material that is plentiful but is not actual food thus this would not displace food crops (which is often one of the main problems with biofuel production ) . I really think they've got the right idea here -I had ...[text shortened]... me substances with no solubility in water providing they have some reasonable solubility in oil.

More proof it does not take millions of years to produce biofuels like petroleum.

The Instructor

Originally posted by RJHinds
More proof it does not take millions of years to produce biofuels like petroleum.

The Instructor

You are a desperate little man, jump on anything that will help your useless cause.

Originally posted by sonhouse
You are a desperate little man, jump on anything that will help your useless cause.

LOL. I OBVIOUSLY can guess who you are responding to although I happily don't see his posts. Have you considered also blocking his posts like I do? You may find to like doing that like I do because I already, since I have been doing this, noticed this forum seems so much more pleasant AND intelligent! If enough of us do the same, his trolling would become a misnomer and we can then just leave him to forever talk just to himself like the idiot he is for, in his totally delusional mind, I bet he won't have the intelligence to ever acknowledged when we no longer can see his moronic posts because we don't want to see his posts because they are moronic, completely devoid of reason, uninformative, arrogant to the extreme and unintelligent -his delusional high opinion of himself will prevent him ever seeing this truth (and all others ) .

Originally posted by humy
I believe, in the far future, most of traditional manufacturing for most products and materials, not just biofuel, will be replaced with mainly enzyme-driven processing because that will produce massive energy savings and make everything from microchips to solar panels to cars to whole houses a minuscule fraction of their current cost!

If enzyme-driven processing makes solar panels much cheaper, it will no-longer be necessary to have energy savings, making enzyme-driven processing less important. 🙂
However, I don't think enzymes can solve most manufacturing problems. Chemical reactions are only a small fractions of manufacturing processes.

Originally posted by humy
LOL. I OBVIOUSLY can guess who you are responding to although I happily don't see his posts. Have you considered also blocking his posts like I do? You may find to like doing that like I do because I already, since I have been doing this, noticed this forum seems so much more pleasant AND intelligent! If enough of us do the same, his trolling would become a mis ...[text shortened]... s delusional high opinion of himself will prevent him ever seeing this truth (and all others ) .

He said 'more proof it doesn't take millions of years to make oil' I paraphrase. Of course ignoring the fact that the intelligence of mankind with modern technology can speed up almost any natural process.

Originally posted by twhitehead
If enzyme-driven processing makes solar panels much cheaper, it will no-longer be necessary to have energy savings, making enzyme-driven processing less important. 🙂
However, I don't think enzymes can solve most manufacturing problems. Chemical reactions are only a small fractions of manufacturing processes.

Chemical reactions are only a small fractions of manufacturing processes.

I think that would change in the far future because most materials that make up a product would be made with the help of enzymes and, for example, there would be no molding, carving, shaping, filing, stretching etc materials into the right shape for each component because each solid component will be 'grow' to exactly the right shape (probably, I think, systematically in one thin layer at a time via enzymes ) and shaped to an accuracy of an atom's length for the required component thus avoiding molding, carving, shaping, filing, stretching etc.
Also, many products, despite made of several different parts, would be 'gown' in one piece to avoid time and energy assembling separate components together. I think, for efficiency reasons, that only stands to reason.

I certainly cannot think of a single solid product that could NOT be manufactured with the help of enzymes AND with enzymes helping to improve energy efficiency! I think metals (in metallic form as opposed to being in chemical compound form ) will be largely replaced by polymers and ceramics BUT, even in the few products that really require metal in metallic form in them, enzymes can make that metal in anaerobic conditions (to stop oxidation ) by having the metal being presented to the enzyme in soluble compound form (in many cases, as a nitrate salt ) dissolved in water and then the enzymes turn that in metallic metal one layer of atoms at a time.

Originally posted by sonhouse
He said 'more proof it doesn't take millions of years to make oil' I paraphrase. Of course ignoring the fact that the intelligence of mankind with modern technology can speed up almost any natural process.

Except EVIL-lution.

The Instructor

Originally posted by humy
I think that would change in the far future because most materials that make up a product would be made with the help of enzymes and, for example, there would be no molding, carving, shaping, filing, stretching etc materials into the right shape for each component because each solid component will be 'grow' to exactly the right shape (probably, I think, systema ...[text shortened]... h for the required component thus avoiding molding, carving, shaping, filing, stretching etc.

How does that work? I thought enzymes just aided reactions like catalysts. How do they guide the shape of the resulting product?

And what is so wrong with 3D printing? I expect that to take over most manufacturing just as soon as we find a cheap plastic or other material as the source material. Hopefully it will be reusable, so when your car, or your fridge or your sofa get old, the basic structural materials can be recycled in your home.

Also, many products, despite made of several different parts, would be 'gown' in one piece to avoid time and energy assembling separate components together. I think, for efficiency reasons, that only stands to reason.
The moment we cover the world in wind farms and solar panels, energy will be practically free. Efficiency will no longer be the prime directive.

I certainly cannot think of a single solid product that could NOT be manufactured with the help of enzymes AND with enzymes helping to improve energy efficiency!
I would like to know how they would work.


I would like to point out that much of the worlds energy goes into smelting and other mining operations. Now if you can find a way to get metals out of rocks using enzymes then you are on to something. Another big one is to break down coal into cleaner petroleum products.

Originally posted by twhitehead
How does that work? I thought enzymes just aided reactions like catalysts. How do they guide the shape of the resulting product?

Seems to me that *chaperone*s (protein folding enzymes) is unknown to this user. 😉 They function as to shape the structure of most proteines and as to maintain the structure of proteines.

Some links to back this up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaperone_%28protein%29
http://people.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/~ubcg16z/cpn/elmovies.html
http://www.pdb.org/pdb/101/motm.do?momID=32

Originally posted by bikingviking
Seems to me that *chaperone*s (protein folding enzymes) is unknown to this user. 😉 They function as to shape the structure of most proteines and as to maintain the structure of proteines.

I am not talking about folding proteins, I am talking about large scale structures. How would enzymes be used to make a bunch of plastic into the shape of a chair for example.

Originally posted by twhitehead
How does that work? I thought enzymes just aided reactions like catalysts. How do they guide the shape of the resulting product?

And what is so wrong with 3D printing? I expect that to take over most manufacturing just as soon as we find a cheap plastic or other material as the source material. Hopefully it will be reusable, so when your car, or your f ...[text shortened]... you are on to something. Another big one is to break down coal into cleaner petroleum products.

How does that work? I thought enzymes just aided reactions like catalysts. How do they guide the shape of the resulting product?

Just look at how it does already in nature. Consider, for example, just one example; bone. Enzymes in our bones lay down calcium phosphate and also structural support proteins (which stop that calcium phosphate being too brittle ) to create a 3D structure we call bone. Of course, that process is controlled by a complex arrangement of living cells but, I see no reason in principle why the same control could not be done either without living cells (possibly using something similar to 'lab-on-a-chip' except not really to do with a 'lab' but rather manufacturing ) or with synthetic living cells. If nature can produce bone with the help of enzymes at room temperature (near enough ) and pressure, then why cannot we artificially make bone with the help of enzymes at room temperature and pressure shaped, say, as bricks suitable to use as bricks to build houses? Or grow bone to be shaped exactly like the desired bodywork of a car etc?

And what is so wrong with 3D printing?

I thought what I propose here IS a type of 3D printing!!!?

The moment we cover the world in wind farms and solar panels, energy will be practically free. Efficiency will no longer be the prime directive.

-but minimizing energy wastage would ALWAYS make sense EVEN when we got a VAST supply of it! That's because, no matter how VAST that supply is, it is still finite and not infinite and it always makes sense to get the most benefit from any finite resource and that means doing everything you can to minimize wastage through unnecessary inefficient use.
Even if you have access to all the energy in the entire universe, with all else being equal, it still would be stupid to deliberately choose to use a less efficient machine to do something rather than a more efficient machine even if we are talking here about wasting just a mere 0.01% of all that energy!

Originally posted by humy
. If nature can produce bone with the help of enzymes at room temperature (near enough ) and pressure, then why cannot we artificially make bone with the help of enzymes at room temperature and pressure shaped, say, as bricks suitable to use as bricks to build houses? Or grow bone to be shaped exactly like the desired bodywork of a car etc?

Well it sounds to me like the shape has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that you are using enzymes, so it is not the enzymes doing the shaping.

Even if you have access to all the energy in the entire universe, with all else being equal, it still would be stupid to deliberately choose to use a less efficient machine to do something rather than a more efficient machine even if we are talking here about wasting just a mere 0.01% of all that energy!
I agree that efficiency is usually if not always desirable, but my point is that energy efficiency may not be the most important factor.

I am also not convinced that enzymes would have much impact at all on energy efficiency. Give an example of a high energy use process that you think enzymes would replace.

Originally posted by twhitehead
[b]Well it sounds to me like the shape has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that you are using enzymes, so it is not the enzymes doing the shaping.

[b]Even if you have access to all the energy in the entire universe, with all else being equal, it still would be stupid to deliberately choose to use a less efficient machine to do something rath ...[text shortened]... ires putting them in a kiln and just think of the huge amount of energy that goes into heating it!!!

Well it sounds to me like the shape has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that you are using enzymes, so it is not the enzymes doing the shaping.

not on the macroscopic scale, yes. But the enzymes would shape it on a molecular and nano scale.

Give an example of a high energy use process that you think enzymes would replace.

1, fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere at room temperature and pressure to make N-fertilizer. This replaces the haber process that normally requires high temperatures and expensive equipment. (but I don't think there would be much nitrogen fixation needed in the far future thanks to better ways to recycling the nitrogen that is already fixed thanks to the use of enzymes! )

2, A designer drag that would otherwise be made using massively expensive equipment at high temperatures in a chemical plant.

3, Making bricks by making them out of bone in the way I just described. Making bricks normally requires putting them in a kiln and just think of the huge amount of energy that goes into heating it!!!

Originally posted by humy
...complex arrangement of living cells but, I see no reason in principle why the same control could not be done either without living cells (possibly using something similar to 'lab-on-a-chip' except not really to do with a 'lab' but rather manufacturing ) or with synthetic living cells. ...

In nature many cells reach their functional state as dead cells. The schoolbook example beeing. The channels almost all trees use to transport wather.