Panda Poop Could Be Key To Producing Biofuels

CBS Denver 08/30/2011 08:33

The waste of one of the world’s most endangered animals may hold the key to producing biofuels. The potency of the discovery had scientists talking about it at a major chemistry conference in Denver on Monday.

CBS4′s Kathy Walsh was at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society for all the fuss about panda feces. It turns out panda droppings could solve one of the major hurdles to producing biofuels.

They are adorable and endangered. Every giant panda birth is a worldwide wonder.

“It’s probably the most pleasant fecal material to actually work with,” Dr. Ashli Brown said.

Brown and grad student Candace Williams discovered something amazing in panda excrement. They analyzed the fresh feces of bamboo-eating pandas at the Memphis Zoo. They found microbes in panda droppings break down super-tough plant materials — grasses, corn stalks and wood chips.

“Once you have the bacteria you can grow them outside of the intestinal track of the panda,” Brown said.

Eventually the scientists want to try engineering the digestive enzymes on a large scale so plant waste could be used to make biofuels, instead of relying on food crops like corn.

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