While traveling through the heavily populated city of Sao Paulo in Brazil, a University official noticed something unique about its gas stations.

“When you go to a gas station in Brazil, you have the choice: you can either pump pure ethanol or you can pump this gasoline/ethanol mix, and typically people make the choice depending on whatever the price is,” said David Lee, vice president for research.

Brazilian consumers can make a choice at the pump because many are driving flex-fuel cars, or vehicles that run on a mixture of gasoline and ethanol, or pure forms of either. The flex-fuel cars have reduced greenhouse emissions by 90 percent in Brazil, Lee said.

University researchers recently met with Brazilians in an effort to form international relationships that will further both countries’ bioenergy progress.

Though the U.S. and Brazil lead the production of ethanol in the world, they are seeking to improve the process of creating this sustainable, alternative fuel, Lee said. The current pathway used is that of cellulosic ethanol, or second generation ethanol.

“Right now, most of the U.S. makes its ethanol from corn, but to develop biofuels in a sustainable way, we have to develop second generation biofuels,” Lee said. That means taking plant materials and breaking down its cellulose into constituents and turning that into ethanol.

Brazil’s use of sugarcane produces several bioproducts, including sugar, ethanol and electricity, Lee said. The leftover material from sugarcane, called baggasse, or “Buh-goss,” is burned at a very high temperature to produce electricity that is able to power the sugar ethanol mill. It may also be used to convert into energy, Lee said.

Cue the entrance of the University’s Complex Carbohydrate Research Center.

“Our goal in life is to look at the biology of complex carbohydrates,” said Alan Darvill, co-director of the CCRC. It is the largest center in the world that studies carbohydrates, which make up cellulose in plants. It contains the analytical, high-tech equipment necessary to study the complex structures of carbohydrates, he said.

The University may collaborate with Brazilian researchers, who are interested in plant carbohydrates, to build a similar center as the CCRC. Professor Marcos Buckeridge from the University of Sao Paulo will visit the CCRC in the summer to discuss the possibility of working together in the future, Darvill said.

For the University’s research in cellulosic ethanol, it is looking at switchgrass and populous trees as sources, Darvill said.

“We’re looking at how can we modify the plants, modify the microbes that would break down the sugars, or an alternative is to go into the environment and find those that do it naturally,” Darvill said. “Our goals are the same. They’re looking at sugarcane and we’re looking at switchgrass.”

Another University researcher already has been collaborating with the Brazilians for 15 years. Most of the work is to try to better understand the particularly complicated genetics of sugarcane, said Andrew Paterson, a research professor in plant genetics and genomic analysis.

About a year ago, his lab began to collaborate with Brazilian researchers to find a way to sequence the entire sugarcane genome. A genome contains all the genes of an organism, which direct its functions.

Once it is sequenced, it will enable scientists to find particular genes quickly and efficiently and help test particular genes for characteristics, Paterson said.

“In plants, we can better understand which genes are related to production of plants parts that are economically important.”

In 2007, the U.S. and Brazil signed a memorandum of understanding to work together to promote the use of ethanol and other renewable fuels throughout the world, Lee said.