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Few people thought much of it when part of a wood stick dissolved into
a chemical in John
Verkade's lab 40 years ago. Now that incident could help unlock more
energy from a kernel of corn.
Verkade, university professor of chemistry,
is studying whether the chemical can help turn corn fiber into ethanol.
His work is supported by a grant from the Iowa Corn Promotion Board (ICPB).
Right now, ethanol producers have limited markets for corn fiber - "what's
left after you squeeze the innards out" of corn kernels, Verkade
said. Its primary use is in livestock feed, but developing additional
uses for the fiber would benefit corn farmers and the new farmer-owned
corn processing plants in Iowa.
Verkade wants to turn that fiber into ethanol. He and Dan
Armstrong, the Caldwell Chair in chemistry, are testing a chemical
compound Verkade first made as a graduate student in the 1950s. In 1960,
a graduate student working with Verkade was boiling some of the chemical
and left a wood stick in it.
"He saw it disappear into the beaker. It got fuzzy on the end,"
Verkade said. It was a notable accident, but "nobody was interested
in it at the time."
Verkade only recently found that the chemical also works on corn fiber.
It reacts with cellulose, a woody substance in trees, corn hulls and corn
stalks. Cellulose gives the plant its structure and integrity, Verkade
explained.
Cellulose is made of glucose, the same material packed into the starch
found in corn and other grains. But the glucose chains in cellulose are
so tightly bound that humans can't digest them - and it's hard to make
ethanol from them.
The chemical Verkade and Armstrong are researching seems to break cellulose
into smaller glucose chains. "It forms a different compound than
the original cellulose," Verkade said.
The research is in its early stage, according to Kyle Phillips, chair
of the ICPB's research committee. "With Iowa's new ethanol plants
producing more corn fiber, it's increasingly important that we develop
markets for this important co-product. The challenge is that we can't
know in advance which research approach will give us the best results,"
Phillips says.
"We think it's possible Dr. Verkade's work will give us a chemical
that can break down cellulose enough to make its glucose accessible for
ethanol production." Phillips concludes. "It's too early to
say whether this method of producing ethanol from corn fiber will be economically
feasible. But if it is, it will deliver major benefits to Iowa's corn
growers."
The Iowa Corn Promotion Board is made up of 17 Iowa corn growers elected
from Iowa's crop districts by their peers. Established in 1977, the Iowa
checkoff invests approximately $1 million annually in research to develop
new products from corn, emphasizing especially research that can lead
to value-added opportunities for Iowa corn growers.
--Courtesy of the College of Agriculture
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