Scientists discover a new way to convert corn waste into low-cost sugar for biofuel

Scientists at Washington State College have discovered a brand new method to produce sugar from corn stalks and different crop waste, probably opening a brand new pathway to sustainable biofuels.

Newly published in Bioresource Know-howtheir experimental course of used ammonium sulfite-based alkali salts to transform corn stover—leftover corn stalks, husks, and different residues—into low-cost sugar for the manufacturing of biofuels and bioproducts, making the method extra economically possible.

“Inexpensive sugar is the key to commercial success for new technologies that make fuels and useful products from renewable biomass,” mentioned Bin Yang, professor at WSU’s Division of Organic Programs Engineering and a lead investigator on the research.

Yang and collaborators on the College of Connecticut, the Nationwide Renewable Power Laboratory (NREL), the USDA Forest Merchandise Lab in Madison, Wisconsin, and Washington College in St. Louis, Missouri, sought a cost-competitive method to effectively flip cellulosic biomass—residues from corn and different powerful, lignin- and cellulose-rich crops—into sugar.

Considerable and low-cost, biomass holds nice potential as a supply of vitality and precious chemical compounds. However its excessive value of processing, as a result of difficulties in breaking down complicated structural molecules like cellulose and lignin, stays a serious problem.

To unlock the huge potential advantages of this useful resource, it is important to develop new pretreatment applied sciences that may higher break down complicated polymers to provide inexpensive sugars.

Within the paper, scientists describe how they developed a course of that pretreats corn stover with potassium hydroxide and ammonium sulfite at delicate temperatures. The remedy permits enzymes to interrupt down cellulosic polymers into sugar, which might then be fermented into biofuels and bioproducts with out the necessity for chemical restoration.

They calculated that, by offsetting the price of manufacturing by byproduct makes use of or gross sales, the ensuing sugar might be offered for as little as 28 cents per pound, making it aggressive with low-cost imported sugar.

“This patent-pending process produces high-quality fermentable sugar for the biorefinery—the industrial process turning plant matter into fuel—as well as fertilizer that can replenish soil nutrients for farmers,” Yang theorized. “There’s no waste stream.”