Sweet diesel: Discovery resurrects process to convert sugar directly to diesel

Nearly 100 years ago, a chemist discovered that Clostridium bacteria efficiently ferment sugar or starch into alcohols and acetone. Cheap fossil fuels made the process commercially unviable, but it is being resurrected by chemists and chemical engineers to feed a catalytic reaction that produces a fuel that looks and acts just like diesel. The simple process produces a fuel with more energy content than ethanol, and could help replace nonrenewable transportation fuels.

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