Purdue professor explores new avenue in ethanol production
>>Print ViewPublication Date: 10/07/2008
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A Purdue professor has discovered a new way to produce ethanol that may help to free the U.S. from its oil addiction.
Michael Ladisch is the director of Purdue's Laboratory of Renewable Resources Engineering, an interdisciplinary department that has been in the forefront of ethanol research for the past 30 years. The department's research has unlocked a way to produce ethanol from a large variety of plants that could yield much higher amounts of ethanol per acre than corn.
Corn ethanol is mixed with gasoline to lower the price of gas. Since this fuel is traditionally produced from corn, many politicians have criticized it for raising food prices.
"If you use cellulosics there is very little impact on food," Ladisch said.
Cellulosic ethanol can be produced from corn stalks, paper, wood chips or grasses, which allows the same amount of material to yield more fuel.
Research Assistant Professor Miroslav Sedlak has been working with Ladisch to increase the output of the production process. Sedlak said he hopes that by 2075 the new technology will increase the production capacity of ethanol from eight billion to 60 billion gallons.
"If everything goes right, it should lower the price of gas," Sedlak said.
The high oil prices and increasing demand for oil overseas have contributed to the department's publicity, Ladisch said. With more ethanol, the U.S. would rely less on foreign oil, said Wallace Tyner, a professor of agricultural economics.
A Canadian company, Iogen, is already using the cellulosic process to produce a small amount of ethanol that is being sold on the market. But due to the cost of the production process, Tyner said, the impact on the price of gasoline would be marginal, if anything, in the next five to ten years, without subsidies from the government.