Abstract
Because biofuels have the unique potential to be rapidly deployed in existing transportation fuel infrastructures, they should play a major role in helping California quickly meet its aggressive goals to substantially reduce greenhouse gas contributions by this major sector. Furthermore, energy crops are vital to significantly impact the State's large and burgeoning need for sustainable fuels. Among crops amenable to be grown in California to support fuel production, agave pose a particularly promising prospect, given their drought tolerance and high productivity on marginal land in a State prone to drought and limited water resources. This study focuses on measuring compositional profiles of wild A. deserti and cultivated A. americana, two agaves native to California, to elucidate their potential for biological conversion to fuels that can help meet the huge State need for low-carbon transportation. Results from this study indicate that these two California agave species can be rich in fructans, ranging from 96-314 g/L of equivalent fructose and glucose in their leaf bases. In addition, structural and water-soluble sugar contents exceeding 63 wt.% show that these plants are amenable to fermentation to ethanol and other biofuels. Moreover, because the low K-lignin content of agave leaf bases bagasse of only about 12-18 wt.% suggests low recalcitrance and the negligible acid insoluble ash content should facilitate pretreatment prior to fermentations, the agave species native to the State hold considerable promise as potential biofuel feedstocks.
Highlights
Biofuels constitute a critical means for satisfying California’s enormous gasoline appetite while simultaneously facilitating its progressive march towards the creation of a greener and more sustainable energy future
Though the native status of A. americana is debatable as the Jepson Herbarium database, which focuses on the vascular plants of California, does not list it as such [30]; it is included in this study as the plant has shown significant potential as a bioenergy crop
The California agave species A. americana and A. deserti utilized in this case study are drought tolerant plants with low water requirements that have high potential as biorefinery
Summary
Biofuels constitute a critical means for satisfying California’s enormous gasoline appetite while simultaneously facilitating its progressive march towards the creation of a greener and more sustainable energy future. Chemical composition of native California agave species. Environmental Engineering at the Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE_CERT), Bourns College of Engineeering at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), for Charles E. A 2014 University of California Center on Economic Competitiveness in Transportation (UCCONNECT) (Award No.: 00008347) graduate fellowship was awarded to May Ling Lu (MLL) to support her effort on agave compositional analysis. Link to the UCCONNECT website can be found at http:// ucconnect.berkeley.edu/. The authors are grateful for the provision of the 2014 UCR Graduate Fellowship by the UCR Bourns College of Engineering to May Ling Lu (MLL), which facilitated this study. All the funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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