Better Use of Biomass
01 December 2015
An international team of researchers has investigated at a hitherto unprecedented level of detail the structure of a class of enzymes which can be used to produce energy and recyclable materials from plants.
Enzymes from the class known as glycosidases were investigated using, among other instruments, the neutron diffractor BioDiff operated by the Jülich Centre for Neutron Science together with the TU Munich. The results provide the key to improving the large-scale technical processing of biomass.
Original publication:
Q. Wan, J. M. Parks, B. L. Hanson, S. Z. Fisher, A. Ostermann, T. E. Schrader, D. E. Graham, L. Coates, P. Langan, and A. Kovalevsky
Direct determination of protonation states and visualization of hydrogen bonding in a glycoside hydrolase with neutron crystallography
PNAS 112, 12384 (2015) – DOI