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 option to produce sugar from corn stalks and different crop waste, doubtlessly opening a brand new pathway to sustainable biofuels.

Newly published in Bioresource Expertise, their 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.

“Cheap sugar is the important thing to business success for brand spanking new applied sciences that make fuels and helpful merchandise from renewable biomass,” stated Bin Yang, professor at WSU’s Division of Organic Techniques Engineering and a lead investigator on the examine.

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

Plentiful and low-cost, biomass holds nice potential as a supply of vitality and invaluable chemical compounds. However its excessive price of processing, because of the difficulties in breaking down advanced structural molecules like cellulose and lignin, stays a significant 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 advanced polymers to supply 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 way of 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 course of produces high-quality fermentable sugar for the biorefinery—the commercial course of turning plant matter into gas—in addition to fertilizer that may replenish soil vitamins for farmers,” Yang theorized. “There is no waste stream.”