Potatoes are a great source of starch and presumably some of that starch can break down into sugars needed for fermentation.

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Most plants use an enzyme called rubisco to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into sugars containing three carbon atoms a process known as C3 photosynthesis.

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It is brewed with an extended mashing time, in which the carbohydrates are broken down into simple sugars that are then fermented into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

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Those fungi, in turn, broke down the carbohydrates in the foods back into simple sugars.

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It used to be impossible economically to break down the inedible part of a plant, like a used corncob and other parts of a plant, into cheap, usable sugars to get ethanol at an economic price.

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The four-stage catalytic process transforms sugars derived from biomass into alkanes that have almost the exact chemical structure as traditionally produced biofuel.

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Strobel envisions making mycodiesel the way ethanol is made, by implanting the improved dieselmaking genes from the fungus into yeast and then feeding it corn or other plant sugars.

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Instead of using biological tools like enzymes and yeast to transform sugars, the company uses chemistry. (For a quick primer on biofuel technologies, click here.) Catalysts remove the oxygen from the sugars and rearrange the hydrogen and carbon atoms into fuel.

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