Please join us in a special seminar tomorrow Tuesday April 22, noon to 1:30pm in the Fu Room. Lunch will be provided from Pot Belly. All LORRE graduate students are expected to attend. Developments on Enzyme Production for Agro-Energy Dr. Cristiane Sanchez Farinas Researcher at Embrapa Instrumentation, São Carlos, SP, Brazil Bioprocess engineering developments aimed at improving the efficiency of biomass conversion into fuels and chemicals can make an important contribution to an environmentally sustainable society. A good example is the case of Brazil, where 42.4% of the energy consumed is renewable. The production of second generation ethanol from lignocellulosic materials is an important sustainable means of increasing the share of renewables in the energy matrix. However, for the conversion of biomass into ethanol to be economically feasible, it is necessary to improve the efficiency of the enzyme production step, since the cost of the enzymatic cocktails significantly influences the viability of the entire process. In order to address this challenge, our research group at Embrapa Instrumentation has been focusing on studying different strategies to increase the efficiency of the enzyme production step by identifying novel microbial strains and more efficient fermentation techniques. In a recent study we showed the feasibility of using the whole solid-state fermentation (SSF) medium, containing enzymes, mycelia, and residual solid substrate, for the saccharification of sugarcane bagasse and ethanol production. By using the whole SSF medium, the enzyme extraction/filtration steps could be omitted from the overall process, offering advantages in terms of reduced enzyme and process costs, and avoiding the generation of unnecessary effluent streams. This talk will present this and other recent developments related to the enzyme production step and also discuss opportunities to continue the collaboration projects between Embrapa and LORRE.