Many experts today agree that we cannot solely rely on fossil fuels as a source of energy for cars. Therefore, we should look for alternative fuels by experimenting with chemical and engineering sciences. For instance, through the fermentation of yeast, corn produces ethanol. Today, ethanol is an additive to gasoline. Now when I look at the gas pump and see the "contains 10% ethanol" sign, I'll think of corn.
Corn doesn't solely produce ethanol, however. Corn can also produce acetone and butanol: these are "high-value industrial solvents." Butanediol can also be produced from corn: it's "an industrial solvent and a precurser to synthetic rubber." Others chemical feedstock derived from corn include lactic, acetic, and citirc acid.
There is a big problem with producing a chemical from natural microorganisms: they are extremely slow to produce and the concentrations are really low. For instance, the fermentation of yeast to produce ethanol takes about twenty-four to forty-eight hours and about ten percent of the entire final product is ethanol (and these numbers are even worse when producing acetone and butanol from corn). This, in turn, makes production very expensive and time consuming. This is where biochemical engineers come in, researchers at the University of Illinois have found a way to mutate corn and other chemical feedstock to be more efficient.
Source:
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/mcheryan/www/feedstoc.htm
Corn, it is good for eating, and can be used as a renewable resource, amazing. Before I took this class, I thought that corn could be used as a source of energy, but I was not sure. This would be a good concept for people to take notice of. People will have a choice on what kind energy they want to use.
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