Biomass plastic precursor could cut ethanol price by $2 per gallon
Chemical and biological engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered a way to produce high-value polymer materials that can lower the cost of ethanol produced from plant material by more than $2 per gallon. By using oxygen within the biomass to produce various plastic precursor materials, the team demonstrated biomass' economic viability among rural economies in which the sustainable fuel grows, commented George Huber, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of chemical and biological engineering. The team is currently gathering data required to scale up its process to pilot plant testing.
Harvey Spangler Professor George Huber (Chemical & Biological Engineering) and a team of collaborators developed a renewable way of producing a highly valuable commodity chemical from biomass. The development has the potential to reduce the use of petroleum in making plastics and improve the economics of cellulosic ethanol.

A team of chemical and biological engineers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has found a way to produce from biomass a valuable compound used in plastic production that they estimate could lower the cost of ethanol produced from plant material by more than two dollars per gallon.

The development is the latest in an ongoing effort at UW–Madison to create commodity chemicals currently derived from petroleum out of biomass. These bio-derived chemicals could serve as high value co-products of the biofuels manufacturing process, improving the economics of cellulosic bio-refineries.

“This breakthrough shows how biomass-derived commodity chemicals can economically be used to replace petroleum-derived products,” says George Huber, a UW–Madison professor of chemical and biological engineering and affiliate of the Wisconsin Energy Institute. “It also shows how we might improve the rural economies in which biomass grows.”

In their paper published recently by the journal ChemSusChem, Huber and collaborators report a new chemical pathway used to produce 1,5-pentanediol, a plastic precursor primarily used to make polyurethanes and polyester plastics. The group’s highly efficient approach is six times cheaper than a previously reported method, and represents the first economically viable way of producing 1,5-pentanediol from biomass.