A Sweet Deal: Kicking the Oil Habit with Sugar
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 06.15.07
While this breakthrough discovery may not immediately resonate with a majority of the population (not 70% of it anyway), it has already sent the scientific world into a tizzy over its potential implications for biorefinery and our dependence on oil. As reported in this week's issue of Science (subscription needed), a group of scientists have discovered a way to convert glucose into HFM (hydroxymethylfurfural), a chemical that is broken down into components used to manufacture products now made from oil.
Since crude oil is the base component for fuels, plastic and several industrial and household chemicals, finding a method of replacing it with an environmentally friendly, cheap renewable plant matter has long been one of the Holy Grails in science. Z. Conrad Zhang, the lead author and a scientist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)-based Institute for Interfacial Catalysis, described the team's accomplishment thusly: "What we have done that no one else has been able to do is convert glucose directly in high yields to a primary building block for fuel and polyesters."
HMF, the putative building block, is a chemical derived from sugars like glucose and fructose that has shown promise as a replacement for oil-based chemicals typically used to make several consumer goods and industrial chemicals. Although glucose, a sugar commonly found in plants, is the planet's most abundant carbohydrate, developing a method of extracting a measurable amount of HMF from it had proven difficult until now, not least because of the production of several impurities.
Using an innovative non-acidic catalytic system containing metal chloride catalysts (a class of metal halides) in a solvent, or liquid, capable of dissolving cellulose, Zhang and his colleagues were able to obtain HMF yields of 70% or higher from glucose and nearly 90% from fructose with few impurities. Solvents such as the one used here are beneficial in one important respect: they are reusable and therefore do not produce the wastewater typically found in other fructose to HMF conversion processes.
"This, in my view, is breakthrough science in the renewable energy arena," said J.M. White, the director of the Institute for Interfacial Catalysis and Robert A. Welch chair in materials chemistry at the University of Texas. "This work opens the way for fundamental catalysis science in a novel solvent."
Zhang and his team are now hoping to increase HMF yield from glucose while minimizing the formation of impurities by tweaking the combinations of metal halides and ionic solvents used in the process. "The opportunities are endless and the chemistry is starting to get interesting," Zhang said.
Image courtesy of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Via ::Plastic that grows on trees, ::Metal Chlorides in Ionic Liquid Solvents Convert Sugars to 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural
See also: ::70% Of Americans Don't Know Plastic Is Made With Oil, ::Plastic Heal Thyself: Materials Mimic Vascular Networks, ::Burn, Baby, Burn? Making Plastic Fire-Proof, ::UK Town Goes Plastic Bag Free, ::Sugar Cane Jeans
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I think I will start a blog to bring awareness to the American driving public about the use of corn or any other food crop to use for fuel. Maybe I will just call it COBHUGGER. How mindlessly greedy can you get? Right now, the Presidential candidates are out in the socalled Heartand, Breadbasket of the world sucking up to those people who don't have a clue or don't give a hoot about the many hungry people in this world who will be doubly affected by their actions. And our driving habits. I come to Trehugger every day, because I believe your posts do make people think about their environment. Do you think Cob Hugger could do the same?
You guys with your "biofuel kills starving babies!" rhetoric have got to chill. Do you even know how much American corn makes it to the third world? Do you? I'll give you a hint. It's less than the amount that goes into making booze. So when you drink a bourbon or Jack Daniels, you're driving up food prices and killing the little African children.
The reasons for poverty and famine aren't capacity. It's systemic, widespread anarchy, exploitation, and lack of education. Exploitation is in bold for a reason. Our current prosperity is basically earned of the back of those poorer than us, when it could be earned in synergy with them. Need I remind you of the anti-sweatshop and fair-trade movements, not to mention the ecological and labor rights mess China has become due to our continued outsourcing of negative externalities?
Not to mention warfare, lack of medicine, out of control birthrates . . . the list could go on and on. The third world could easily, with investment, oversight, education, and thoughtful measures, feed itself several times over, with plenty left over for biofuel production.
But no, instead we allow all of them to live in squalor, killing each other, dying from AIDS not to mention a hundred other diseases, living in the ecological mess that we've outsourced to them for pennies on the dollar so our socks are cheaper at Wal-Mart . . . then we bitch about a way to fix what is pretty much an untenable situation that affects them as much as us (the continued use of fossil fuels) by saying "Oh, think of the starving children!"
It rings hollow, doesn't it?
Food price have risen because of ethanol. Corn prices have gone up quite a lot in north america, causing problems (esp. mexico, where the poor people are).
Gee; I didn't know all that corn was being wasted on booze. I guess I will have to switch to wine and then to E85 for my tank Will that take away the guilt?
On the one hand, the rise in price of corn is a _good thing_. Why? Because corn prices were already way too low. Farmers were going out of business and corn _was_ getting wasted, sitting at train/truck depots.
On the other hand, since corn prices have been rising it has been hectic on our neighboring countries. One of the reasons Mexico is now having a problem with corn is because the US has been dumping cheep corn on them for a long time. Only now, after their own corn crops have collapsed, our prices are going above their means.
I personally blame the government agency which subsidized corn crops in the first place driving down prices and putting corn derived products into every facet of our economy. Now that there are new uses for corn, ones that uses alot of it we are running into problems.
The solution is not to stop trying to use the corn for fuel and energy. Rather we should stop using corn to feed our cows and make so many food products that are bad for us to eat. The market will eventually stabilize and maybe, just maybe, Mexico will be better off for it if they can finally grow corn cheaper than we can.