Scientists at Washington State University have found a new way to produce sugar from corn stalks and other crop waste, potentially opening a new pathway to sustainable biofuels.
Newly published in Bioresource Technology, their experimental process used ammonium sulphite-based alkali salts to convert corn stover — leftover corn stalks, husks, and other residues — into low-cost sugar for production of biofuels and bioproducts, making the process more economically feasible.
“Inexpensive sugar is the key to commercial success for new technologies that make fuels and useful products from renewable biomass,” said Bin Yang, professor at WSU’s Department of Biological Systems Engineering and a lead investigator on the study.
Yang and collaborators at the University of Connecticut, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the USDA Forest Products Lab in Madison, Wisconsin, and Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, sought a cost-competitive way to efficiently turn cellulosic biomass — residues from corn and other tough, lignin- and cellulose-rich crops — into sugar.
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