PhD Studentship: The Role of Cell Wall Structure in Determining Sustainable Bioalcohol Production from Lignocellulose, UK

June 26, 2010

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Job Description : Commercial exploitation of straw co-products for bio-alcohol production requires improvement in the levels and ease of enzymatic digestibility of plant cell wall carbohydrates. The morphological characteristics and chemical composition of wheat and oilseed rape stems vary between varieties and are being studied across ~48 lines of each crop species in the BBSRC Integrated Biorefinery Technologies Initiative (IBTI) Club project “Optimization of wheat and oilseed rape straw co-products for bio-alcohol production”.
There is a paucity of information how the cell wall archestructure, and interpolymeric cross-linking affect such digestibility. This project will focus on elucidating the underlying role(s) of plant structure (macro- through to polymer) in manifesting the genetically-determined differences in phenotype, harvesting and ease of enzymatic digestion for bioalcohol production. The plant cell wall is the common structural entity here since it is the range of material properties of the wall that determines stem strength and fracture properties, and it is the polysaccharide component of the cell wall which provides the source of sugars for fermentation.
Approximately four to six lines of wheat and/or rape exhibiting an appropriate range of phenotypes (lodging / digestibility) will be identified from the main IBTI project and the associated LINK project HOOCH. These will be evaluated at the tissue level and will be analysed for their gross chemical compositions and FTIR spectra. Selected stem and leaf material will be extracted to produce purified plant cell wall material (CWM). These will be sequentially extracted, sub-fractionated and then characterised for their chemical compositions (carbohydrate and phenolic lignin), thereby providing a “fingerprint” of the wall chemical architecture. A range of techniques including HPLC-MS, GC-MS, FTIR, NMR as appropriate will be used. The “fingerprints” of polymer types will be compared using principal components analysis with the phenotypic and digestibility properties in order to identify key relationships between plant architecture and functional characteristics. The impact of physical and chemical pre-treatments on the structure-function relationships will be also explored. Any likely candidate chemical “signatures” will be used to screen the whole IBTI populations to provide more robust statistical relationships between phenotype, cell-wall chemistry and underlying genetics, and to identify biochemical targets for future exploitation.

The research will be conducted under the supervision of Keith Waldron with co-supervision by Ian Bancroft. Day-to-day supervision provided by the research scientist employed at IFR on the IBTI Club grant.

Funding: This project is funded by an IBTI Club Studentship, from BBSRC’s Targeted Priority Studentships scheme. This brings the benefit of enhanced interaction with the industry partners of the IBTI Club. BBSRC funded studentships normally offer full funding to UK Nationals and EU Nationals who have resided in the UK (in full-time education or full-time residency) for 3 years prior to the start date of the studentship. In most other cases EU Nationals will receive funding to cover their tuition-fees only. The current stipend for 2009/10 is £13,290 per annum (2010/2011 stipend to be confirmed).

How to Apply:

Please visit http://www.ifr.ac.uk/students/admissions.htm for application details.

If you have any further questions please email: graduates.nrp@bbsrc.ac.uk

Application deadline: 31/07/2010

Further Scholarship Information

Scholarship Tags: Bioalcoho, IFR, Lignocellulose, PhD studentship, UK