After having its use set in the gas tanks, it is now the turn of ethanol to sip into the cosmetic, beverages and pharmaceutical products. Two Iowa State University professors are working on it to turn fuel ethanol into food-grade alcohol easily, and in a cheaper way.
According to Jacek Koziel, an assistant professor of agricultural and bio-systems engineering, this research is trying to perfect technologies for purifying fuel ethanol. Fuel ethanol is a corn-made grain alcohol and used as a gasoline additive. Though fuel ethanol is yeast-fermented and a distilled one, it has many more impurities that need to be removed for such new usages.
