Changing oil with wooden for the production of chemical substances

Petroleum method gasoline, however no longer only: petrochemicals are a middle component of the chemical enterprise. with out oil, there might be no plastics and few prescribed drugs or fertilisers. finding a renewable useful resource as an opportunity to oil could be essential to stand the foreseeable decline in oil extraction.

Research tasks of the countrywide research Programme "useful resource timber" (NRP sixty six) have made big advances toward replacing oil with biomass derived from plants, specially from wood. Their dreams are complementary, as each one uses one of the two important materials of wood: cellulose and lignin. those are the 2 maximum commonplace organic components on the earth and, importantly, are renewable.

Sviatlana Siankevich of EPFL has designed new catalytic approaches to efficiently rework cellulose into hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), a totally important precursor for the production of plastics, fertilisers or biofuels. inspired by way of the motion of fungi degrading rotting wooden, the team of Philippe Corvini at FHNW in Muttenz (BL) has decided on enzymes able to cutting lignin into aromatic compounds useful for making solvents, pesticides, plastics consisting of polystyrenes as well as energetic pharmaceutical elements.