Tri-Cities Tech Business Update
Plastic that grows on trees
Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory developed a one-step process aimed at using plants to create a renewable, nonpolluting replacement for crude oil. The work builds on earlier work by PNNL researchers where scientists converted simple sugars derived from cellulose into a building block for plastics and fuels. In this new research, chemists have bypassed the sugar-forming step and successfully converted cellulose-the most common plant carbohydrate -directly into a chemical called HMF in a single step. HMF, also known as 5-hydroxymethylfurfural, can be used as a building block for plastics and "biofuels" such as gasoline and diesel, essentially the same fuels processed from crude oil. This simple process generates a high yield of HMF and allows the use of raw cellulose as feed material. The research will be featured in an upcoming issue of the publication Applied Catalysis A. Contact Mary Beckman at 509-375-3688.
