The deconstruction of lignocellulose is critical to produce sugars for fermentation for biofuel production, as well as to identify potential added-value products and integrate their extraction with the ethanol production. This process needs to be understood at the biochemical level in order to optimise for cost, energy efficiencyand recovery of intermediate products originated from lignins and hemicelluloses. A high-throughput assay will help identify QTLs and markers for improved digestibility in germplasm collections from WP1, and critically assess the digestibility of plants with modified cell walls that emerge from WPs3 and 4. We will take a combinatorial approach to identify pre-treatment and enzyme cocktails to release valuable components from biomass in order to provide the range of products being developed in WP6 and scaled up and analysed in WP7 and 8.

WP5 Leader:  Dr Leonardo Gomez (P1, University of York, CNAP, UK)