VATIS UPDATE Article

A team of scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the United States, has found a way to produce from biomass a valuable compound used in plastic production that they estimate could lower the cost of ethanol produced from plant material by more than two dollars per gallon. The development is the latest in an ongoing effort at UW-Madison to create commodity chemicals currently derived from petroleum out of biomass.

These bio-derived chemicals could serve as high value co-products of the biofuels manufacturing process, improving the economics of cellulosic bio-refineries. “This breakthrough shows how biomass-derived commodity chemicals can economically be used to replace petroleum-derived products. It also shows how we might improve the rural economies in which biomass grows,” said George Huber, at UW-Madison.

Huber and team reported a new chemical pathway used to produce 1,5-pentanediol, a plastic precursor pri-marily used to make polyurethanes and polyester plastics. The group’s highly efficient approach is six times cheaper than a previously reported method, and represents the first economically viable way of producing 1,5-pentanediol from biomass. Plant biomass is typically about 40 percent oxygen by weight, while petroleum oil is less than 0.1 percent oxygen.