Squeezing oil out of plants and into your gas tank: it’s hard

Here is a summary of new research published in The Plant Cell, written by Martin Vorel and published on the Michigan State University website.

Sometimes, when a science experiment doesn’t work out, unexpected opportunities open up.

That’s what Yang Yang and the Benning lab have found in their latest work on sustainable biofuels.

When they tried to transfer a method that increases energy content in a lab plant to another plant that is targeted to make biofuels, the technique did not lead to the expected result.

But in looking into why, they found out a lot about subtle differences between two different types of plants. This basic research, conducted at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, is crucial to furthering biofuels explorations.

The study is published in The Plant Cell.

Read more: https://prl.natsci.msu.edu/news-and-events/news/squeezing-oil-out-of-plants-and-into-your-gas-tank-its-hard/