7-06: New commercial enzymes for lignocellulosic biomass degradation: are they good enough?

More than a decade of commercial enzyme development by Novozymes and others will soon be put to the test as large-scale demonstration and commercial second-generation ethanol plants come on line within the next few years. Our Cellic® CTec2 product performs well across a range of biomass substrates and pretreatments and is cost-effective for many, but still has potential for improvement. We will present data showing that improvements in the performance and/or thermostability of multiple individual components such as cellobiohydrolase I and II and ß-glucosidase, as well as metal-dependent polysaccharide oxidoreductase (formerly GH61), result in markedly improved performance compared to Cellic® CTec2. The improvements also create a greater robustness across a range of possible process conditions. Details on specific improvements and relating them to real-world enzyme performance and to our current modeling of the cost drivers affecting commercialization of second-generation biofuels will be discussed. The lessons we have learned are currently being applied to the next generation of enzymes that will make further improvements in specific activity, thermostability, and robustness in performance across pretreatments and process variables during hydrolysis.