With an estimated annual production of 180 billion tons per year plant cell walls (lignocellulosics) present an enormous renewable resource, of which only 2% are utilized by humans. The major bottleneck in utilizing this carbon neutral resource for the sustainable production of commodity chemicals is the recalcitrance of the wall material to degradation. With our various research projects we aim at characterizing the structural features of the plant cell wall that lead to this recalcitrance. Selecting or engineering plant feedstocks with reduced recalcitrance enhances the yield and reduces energy-input to produce sustainable commodity chemicals.
Our institute performs research in the areas of "sustainable bioproduction and resource protection" and " Microbial and Molecular mass conversion". This research includes: