UMass Amherst Researchers Solve Long-Standing Mystery of How
Cellulose Chains Break Down  One would think that scientists had
long ago cracked the secret of cellulose, the most abundant
polymer on Earth, in order to break its chemical bonds and
harness its wealth of energy. But in fact, only recently have
theoretical chemist Scott Auerbach and colleagues at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst discovered how cellulose
chains break down with heat, which is critical information for
efficiently converting cellulose to biofuels. Reporting in the
current issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society,
Auerbach and chemical engineer Paul Dauenhauer, with others, for
the first time model at the molecular level the activation
energies needed for the chemical reaction known as “fast
pyrolysis” to proceed in cellulose. The model meets the tight
strictures of chemical accuracy, within 5 kilojoules per mole of
cellulose. “We’re quite sure that experiments testing our model
will confirm it,” says Auerbach. A bas