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Conversion of Invasive Species, Rhamnus carthartica , into Combustible Biofuel: A Novel Approach to Conservation
Author(s) -
McCollough Shan,
Eickhoff Isaac,
Soneral Paula
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2018.32.1_supplement.lb218
Subject(s) - biofuel , biomass (ecology) , cellulase , context (archaeology) , botany , shrub , horticulture , chemistry , food science , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , agronomy , cellulose , biochemistry , paleontology
Common buckthorn, Rhamnus carthartica, is an invasive species that outcompetes native species throughout North America. Introduced from Europe for horticultural purposes, this decorative shrub is fast‐growing, shade tolerant, and depletes soil nutrients. Given its exquisite fitness and negative consequences to biodiversity, an approach to mitigate the detrimental effects of buckthorn is essential. Can buckthorn biomass be turned into energy? The goal of this project was to evaluate the efficacy and feasibility of transforming buckthorn into combustible ethanol as a long‐term conservation strategy. We asked two central questions in the context of a course‐based undergraduate research experience: 1) Which tissue ‐ leaves, stems, or berries ‐ is the optimal source of biomass? 2) Does pre‐freezing enhance ethanol yield? Tissue harvested from 20 locations in the upper‐midwest were subjected to cellulase pretreatment followed by fermentation. Crude samples were then filtered and subjected to simple and fractional distillation to 95% purity. The ethanol from all sources was combustible. Although berries contained the highest amount of pre‐cellulase glucose, all biomass produced comparable amounts of final ethanol yields (ANOVA p=.93). Freeze‐thaw pretreatment of these tissues produced significantly lower ethanol yields (T‐test p=.00063). Based on this data, we propose a scalable, sustainable, and economically viable buckthorn‐to‐biofuel conversion program that can be implemented in a variety of community contexts. This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .