A scientific breakthrough in the renewable energy arena is surely going to make this possible! Finally, scientists will be able to replace crude oil as the root source for plastic, fuels and scores of other industrial and household chemicals with inexpensive, nonpolluting renewable plant matter.
Z. Conrad Zhang, senior author who led the research and a scientist with the PNNL-based Institute for Interfacial Catalysis is quoted to have said:
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.
In a giant step towards biorefinery scientists have discovered the most effective method yet to convert glucose, found in plants worldwide and nature’s most abundant sugar, to HFM,(hydroxymethylfurfural) a chemical that can be broken into components for products now made from petroleum.
To achieve this, they experimented with a novel non-acidic catalytic system containing metal chloride catalysts in a solvent capable of dissolving cellulose.
Working with a high-throughput reactor capable of testing 96 metal halide catalysts at various temperatures, they discovered that a particular metal ‘chromium chloride’ was by far the most effective at converting glucose to HMF with few impurities and, as such reactions go, at low temperature, 100 degrees centigrade.
With oil, finishing the world over as well as the increasing pollution due to burning petroleum products this could definitely become a welcome alternative!
Source: Whats next network
