Brazil GMO firm seeks cellulosic ethanol from cane

SAO PAULO, March 4 (Reuters) - A Brazilian biotechnology company, Alellyx, said Tuesday that its genetic modification of sugar cane could soon lead to breakthroughs in production of cellulosic ethanol, which is seen as one of the most promising alternative fuels.

Brazil's sugar industry is the world's biggest producer of ethanol made from cane, and it views biofuel production from plant material like bagasse or leftover cane stalks as important to the world's future energy needs.

Unlike traditional corn ethanol, the fuel made from cellulosic material does not require a feedstock that also serves as food for people and animals. Many analysts blame surging world food prices on increased demand for ethanol made from grains and other human or animal feedstocks.

"We originally broke into this business mapping the genetic code of a citrus disease but we soon after realized we should be working with the sugar cane sector," Paulo Arruda, one of Alellyx's lead organizers and scientists, said at F.O. Licht's 4th annual seminar on sugar and ethanol in Brazil.

About half of the cane juice crushed from Brazil's nearly 500 million tonne crop goes toward ethanol production, but the industry is trying to learn how to break up lignin, or the woody matter, of the leftover cane to reach trapped sugars.

This has not proved as easy as once thought. Arruda said there are two types of lignin: guaiacyl and syringyl.

"Most plants like cane are about 20 percent lignin, which appears in two forms, syringyl and guaiacyl," he said. "Now, the syringyl doesn't require rigorous treatment to get at the sugar molecules within it, but the guaiacyl does."

"We are developing a cane of almost all syringyl lignin and very little guaiacyl."

If a commercial variety of this form of cane is eventually developed, it could reduce cellulosic ethanol's production cost, which is still much higher than conventional ethanol production.