A research team from the University of Delaware (UD) has invented a more efficient process for extracting the sugars from wood chips, corn cobs and other organic waste from forests and farms.
This bio renewable feedstock could serve as a cheaper, sustainable substitute for the petroleum used in manufacturing tons upon tons of consumer goods annually — goods that consumers want to be greener.
Basudeb Saha, associate director for research at UD’s Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation, a US Energy Department-designated Energy Frontier Research Center — led the effort, which involved scientists from UD and from Rutgers University.
The results are published in the journal ChemSusChem.
“To make greener chemicals and fuel, we’re working with plant material, but we don’t want to compete with its food value,” Saha said. “So instead of taking corn and extracting its sugars to make ethanol, we’re making use of the stalks and cobs left over after the corn is harvested, as well as other kinds of waste like wood chips and rice hulls.”
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