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The days of corn production for ethanol may be
numbered. In a recent scientific breakthrough, Stanford chemistry professor
Matthew Kanan’s research found “appreciable” amounts of liquid ethanol
created from carbon monoxide.
Ethanol is derived mainly from corn, which is a fairly water-intensive crop.
Now, thanks to Kanan and graduate student Christina Li, new techniques
could spell the end for high inputs of water and change the face of ethanol
production, if scaled up.
“What we want to do is develop catalysts and make fuels,” said Kanan. “Cat-
alysts that will work are challenging to produce. We’ve broken the problem
into two steps: Carbon dioxide to CO, and then CO to fuels such as ethanol,
propanol and acetic acid.”
Kanan views the work done to date as a starting point and said he and his
team “have a long way to go,” but that’s not stopping him from setting goals
and working toward sustainable large-scale production methods.
The key development reported by Kanan and his team is a new electrode that
catalyzes fuel production. The process is complex, but in simplified terms, the
electrode combines electricity, carbon monoxide and protons fromwater in an
“electrochemical” reaction to generate ethanol, propanol and acetate. The latter
two are of the most value, said Kanan. If scaled up and incorporated into prac-
tical electrolyzers, the catalyst could be used to produce fuel using renewable
electricity from photovoltaics or wind turbines as the power source.
In the United States, a country that measures its maize crop in the billions of
bushels each year, this could change the end-uses of corn. Last year, the United
States used 13.2 billion gallons of ethanol in gasoline. In Canada, corn forecasts
are rising and Monsanto recently announced a 10-year, $100-million corn ex-
pansion across the Prairies. DuPont Pioneer also announced plans to introduce
new corn hybrids in Alberta over the next five years.
Regardless of what is farmed in North America, Kanan and company are
focused squarely on renewable practices and mitigating rising carbon levels.
“It’s not clear to me that there’s any reasonable solution to the CO2 prob-
lem,” he said. “If you can make it possible to recycle CO2, you make an incen-
tive for removing it and reusing it. That’s a long-termmotivation.”
Kanan’s research was published in the science journal
Nature
.
At the University of Alberta, food scientist Mirko Betti
is giving new life to a variety of livestock byproducts, including skin, bone and
cartilage from poultry and cattle.
“Meat and fish processing generates an immense amount of byproducts,
and from these byproducts we can derive many interesting compounds,” Betti
said. “[These are] bioactive substances, which can be purified and extracted.”
One of these substances is collagen, a fibrous protein found in a variety of
animal tissues that helps those tissues withstand stretching. Once the collagen
is extracted from animal tissues, it is treated using a process called hydrolysis
to create collagen peptides. Those peptides are a valuable ingredient in various
cosmetic products, especially anti-aging pills and skin creams.
“By recovering the collagen and transforming it to peptides, we can basi-
cally create the kind of nutraceuticals that will be used as anti-aging products,
making the skin look younger,” Betti said.
Most of the collagen peptides sold commercially are made from gelatine,
Betti said, in a long process that requires a lot of energy.
Betti and his research team have developed a process for hydrolyzing colla-
gen that is much more efficient than traditional methods. The technology also
makes the collagen peptides more bioavailable to humans, Betti explained.
“We’ve developed a technology that acts directly on the collagen with-
out passing through the gelatine step, which saves a lot of energy and
time,” he said.
The Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency (ALMA) and Alberta Innovates Bio
Solutions fund Betti’s collagen research, which will be completed by 2015.
“Creating value out of low-value byproducts is a really great way to not only
reduce waste, but to add value for both the industry and the processors,” said
Susan Novak, ALMA’s executive director of strategic initiatives. “We feel it
leads to a livestock industry that’s more sustainable.”
Photo courtesy: MatthewKanan
The Food Issue
2014
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