WASHINGTON - A team of scientists from California-based Bio Architecture Lab (BAL) has developed breakthrough technology that expands the feedstocks for advanced biofuels and renewable chemicals production to include seaweed (macroalgae).

The team engineered a microbe to extract all the major sugars in seaweed and convert them into renewable fuels and chemicals, thus making seaweed a cost-effective, renewable source of biomass.

The research will be detailed Friday in an article on journal Science.

"About 60 percent of the dry biomass of seaweed are fermentable carbohydrates, and approximately half of those are locked in a single carbohydrate -- alginate," said Daniel Trunfio, chief executive officer at Bio Architecture Lab. "Our scientists have engineered an enzyme to degrade and a pathway to metabolize the alginate, allowing us to utilize all the major sugars in seaweed, which therefore makes the biomass an economical feedstock for the production of renewable fuels and chemicals."

Seaweed is an ideal global feedstock for the commercial production of biofuels and renewable chemicals because in addition to its high sugar content it has no lignin, it does not require arable land or freshwater to grow, and it is environmentally friendly. Globally, less than three percent of the coastal waters can produce seaweed capable of replacing over 60 billion gallons of fossil fuel.