Genetically Modified Tobacco Leaves Could Produce The Most Efficient Biofuel
2 January 2010 | Alternative Energy | 4 Comments
I’ve never thought that tobacco could be used for anything else besides “killing” our lungs, but it seems that Viaceslav Andrianov, Ph.D, professor of Cancer Biology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University found that tobacco can be used in our tanks as any other biofuel. Perhaps this tobacco biofuel will help us quit smoking and at the same time will help reduce air pollution. After numerous tests, Professor Vyacheslav Andrianov concluded that tobacco is more effective than any other biofuel used until now.
Even at diesel engines,the results were unexpectedly good. The main substance used to prepare this biofuel is the oil extracted from tobacco seeds. These seeds contain 40% oil, but I think it’s a small amount to produce enough tobacco biodiesel for all green cars (a normal tobacco crop can produce only 600 kg of seeds per acre). For this reason researchers have proposed to engineer tobacco plants, so that their leaves expressed the oil. In this way the quantity of oil would increase and the mass production of tobacco biofuel will be a real success.
“Tobacco is very attractive as a biofuel because the idea is to use plants that aren’t used in food production…We have found ways to genetically engineer the plants so that their leaves express more oil. In some instances, the modified plants produced 20-fold more oil in the leaves…Tobacco represents an attractive and promising ‘energy plant’ platform, and could also serve as a model for the utilization of other high-biomass plants for biofuel production“, Dr. Viaceslav Andrianov said.
To increase the amount of oil from these tobacco leaves, the plants were engineered to overexpress one of two genes: DGAT(the diacyglycerol acytransferase gene) or LEC2(the leafy cotyledon 2 gene). After DGAT and LEC2 genes have been genetically modified, the quantity of oil from the tobacco leaves increased from 1.7-4% (as was before) to about 6.8%. I think this is a good idea (the idea to create biofuels using non-edible plants, and especially because these plants could seriously affect smokers), but before using this tobacco biofuel, I think there will be some serious battles against all cigarette manufacturers.
Tags: biodiesel tobacco, DGAT, diacyglycerol acytransferase, engineered tobacco, leafy cotyledon 2, LEC2, reduce air pollution, tobacco biodiesel oil, tobacco biofuel, tobacco diesel, tobacco leaf biodiesel, tobacco leaf biofuel, tobacco seed biodiesel, tobacco seed biofuel, tobacco seeds, vyacheslav andrianov
Not bad article, but I really miss that you didn’t express your opinion, but ok you just have different approach
Hello
I am new here and I just wanted to say hi!
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Hello,
I am new here. I am a mechanical engineer as well a tobacco farmer. I am interested in how to use tobacco effectively to produce biofuel for cars. Please advice.
Thank you
I suggest you to contact any researcher at Thomas Jefferson University. Click this link and contact them!