ORNL researchers use supercomputing to understand how organic solvent and water break down biomass

In Tennessee, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory used neutron scattering and supercomputing to better understand how an organic solvent and water work together to break down plant biomass, creating a pathway to significantly improve the production of renewable biofuels and bioproducts.

The discovery, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, sheds light on a previously unknown nanoscale mechanism that occurs during biomass deconstruction and identifies optimal temperatures for the process.