Agencies

Scientists have successfully increased the capacity to convert plant waste into energy. Funded by Shell Oil, the researchers managed to convert 100% of sugar in the stalks, cobs and husks leftover of corn crop into clean fuel, a news report said.

The generation of fuel in the process, hydrogen, is achieved without any release of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

Till now only 30% to 60% sugar could be converted, but the new method of mixing the biomass with a mixture of 10 enzymes has changed this completely. These result have tremendous implications on the green energy sector as the hydrogen generated can be used as a clean substitute to petrol.

'This means we have demonstrated the most important step toward a hydrogen economy – producing distributed and affordable green hydrogen from local biomass resources," Professor Percival Zhang, part of the research team told the Independent.

One of the best feature of the process is that biomass can be turned directly into usable fuel. This could lead to the substitution of petrol pumps with large bioreactors as green refueling stations.