Squeezing Every Drop of Ethanol From Corn
AEN News
Ames, IA - Brent Shanks, an Iowa State University associate professor
of chemical and biological engineering, is leading a research team
that's working to develop chemical catalysts that could boost
ethanol production by increasing the yield of fermentable sugars
from corn.
The idea is to create the chemical catalysts that create single,
simple sugars from molecules made of several simple sugars linked
together. The simple sugars are the ones that can be fermented
to produce ethanol.
Such a process would allow ethanol producers to use all the
sugars in corn. And Shanks said that could boost ethanol
production by 10 to 15 percent.
The research is supported by grants of $305,000 from the National
Science Foundation, $200,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture
through the Iowa Biotechnology Byproducts Consortium and
$162,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy through the
Midwest Consortium for Biobased Products and Bioenergy.
The research team includes Bert Chandler, an assistant professor
of chemistry at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas; Sarah
Larsen, an associate professor of chemistry at the University
of Iowa in Iowa City; and Michael Ladisch, a distinguished
professor of agricultural and biological engineering at
Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.
Shanks, who worked for the Shell Chemical Co. for 11 years,
said the petrochemical industry has been developing catalysts
and other technologies for working with fossil fuel molecules
for about 80 years. Researchers working with corn and other
bio-based molecules are just starting to develop catalysts
and technologies to improve production of fuels and chemicals.
Shanks' ethanol project is focused on synthesizing and testing
catalysts made from a hybrid of organic and inorganic materials.
The researchers are working at the nanostructure scale,
meaning they're working at the molecular level.
Current ethanol production technology uses enzymes to convert
the starch in corn kernels into simple sugars. The simple
sugars are fermented into ethanol. Shanks said that process
uses about 80 percent of a corn kernel.
The remaining 20 percent of a kernel contains sugar chains
that can't be fermented. Shanks and his research team are
working to develop a chemical catalyst that will break
those sugar chains into the simple sugars that can be
fermented into ethanol.
Pulling out those sugars would also boost the protein level
of the distillers dried grains left behind by ethanol
production. That would make the byproduct more valuable
as an animal feed.
Initial tests in the lab have produced promising results,
Shanks said.
But he said there's still some research and development
work to do before the technology is precise enough to be
used in an ethanol plant.
"This research is in an area that makes a lot of sense for
Iowa," said Shanks, who studied alternative energy as an
Iowa State undergraduate during the energy crisis of the
late 1970s and early 1980s. "I think our interest in
alternative sources for energy and chemicals is very
important to our entire society. We need to come up
with alternatives. But I worry about coming up with
them fast enough."
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