Improvement of xylose fermentation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

2012

The increasing need of oil and the negative impacts of fossil fuels on climate change have motivated the research towards environmental friendly alternatives to diminish the use of fossil resources. Until today, bioethanol production and use has increased worldwide. The raw materials used today compete with food industry and conquently, the ethanol production from lignocellulose has been developed intensively. However, to make the processes economically competitive, also pentoses in lignocellulose should be fermented at high rate. Saccharomyces cerevisiae, alias baker’s yeast has an excellent ethanol production capacity but it can not naturally utilize xylose. Several xylose-utilizing S. ce…