Coffee Grounds And Old Donuts: A New Plastics Biorefinery
Monday, August 20, 2012 - 12:04
in Mathematics & Economics
The world wastes 1.3 billion tons of food per year. If only scientists could create a "biorefinery" that could change food waste into a key ingredient for making plastics, laundry detergents and scores of other everyday products. Because wasting less food would just be crazy talk.The food biorefinery process involves blending the waste foods with a mixture of fungi that excrete enzymes to break down carbohydrates in the food into simple sugars. The blend then goes into a fermenter, a vat where bacteria convert the sugars into succinic acid. Succinic acid is one of those key materials that can be produced from sugars and that could be used to make high-value products - everything from laundry detergents to plastics to medicines. read more