3 Things you Need to Know about Bioproducts

3 Things you Need to Know about Bioproducts

Bioproducts are becoming a great source of raw material for things we use every day. Using bioproducts has the potential to be more economically friendly than using fossil fuels. It is important to know what kinds of materials can be made from bioproducts and how these processes occur.  Three important products that you have probably used many times include sugar, plastics, and fuel, but what materials are used to make these products and how are they made?

1. How do we get Sugar from Bioproducts?

Sugar can be obtained from a variety of bioproducts.  Some of these bioproducts include sugar cane, corn kernels, and corn stover.  The bioproduct we use for sugar depends on the where we are in the world.  For us in the U.S., the sugar making process relies on corn as the main bioproduct source. The process for retrieving sugar as a product is different for each source you use, but we will be looking specifically on the process from corn to sugar.

               Corn begins its process to sugar in the milling stage.  In the dry milling stage, the corn is grinded down in order to expose the starch. A corn slurry is made from a mixture of the exposed starch and water and it is heated.  Next, amylase is used as an enzyme to break down the starch molecules into maltose and then another enzyme is used to break maltose into the simple sugar glucose monomers (Corn Syrup).

2. How do we get Plastics from Bioproducts?

               Generally, the hydrocarbons used to create plastic come from nonrenewable fossil fuels, but plastic can also be produced from bio renewable materials such as wood material, oils, starch, and food waste.  There are a variety of bioplastics that can be made such as non-biodegradable, biodegradable, and compostable. The non-biodegradable bioplastics are made primarily from sugar.  The process to make these bioplastics from sugar can involve different processes with many similarities.  This includes fermenting and distilling sugar to ethanol.  Ethanol is then chemically reacted to form a version of ethylene.  Then a polymerization occurs.  For biodegradable bioplastics, the process is much different.  The raw materials used to make these plastics include starch, cellulose, and sugar. Many of these processed involve fermentation and heat applications (Gibbens).   

3. How do we get Fuels from Bioproducts?

               Plant oils can be converted into fuels.  This process includes extracting the oil from the seed and then converting the oil to fuels through transesterification. Transesterification modifies triglycerides produce improved fuel. The triglycerides react with methanol and a catalyst to produce biodiesel and glycerol.  The glycerol is removed from the mixture and biodiesel is kept for fuel usage. Another process of converting triglycerides to fuel is by hydrotreating the mixture (Ogden).  This produces synthetic diesel by producing molecules of only hydrogen and carbon. The problem with producing renewable fuels from feedstock is the high cost (McFadden).

In conclusion, bioproducts make up a huge portion of materials we use in our lives including sugars, plastics, and fuels. It is vital to know where these products come from and how we can utilize these products compared to nonrenewable resources. Many people do not realize the extent of products that can be made from bio renewable resources.

Resources

“Corn Syrup.” How Products Are Made, http://www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Corn-Syrup.html.

Gibbens, Sarah. “What You Need to Know about Plant-Based Plastics.” Bioplastics-Are They Truly Better for the Environment?, 21 Nov. 2018, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/are-bioplastics-made-from-plants-better-for-environment-ocean-plastic/.

McFadden, Christopher. “Seven Cool Biofuel Crops That We Use for Fuel Production.” Interesting Engineering, Interesting Engineering, 12 Mar. 2018, https://interestingengineering.com/seven-biofuel-crops-use-fuel-production.

Ogden Publications, Inc. “Fuel From Plants! The Basics of Biofuels.” Mother Earth News, https://www.motherearthnews.com/green-transportation/fuel-efficiency/biofuels-zkcz12zsch.

Wood: the Good, the Bad, and the “Neutral”

When people think of wood, there is generally a controversy on whether harvesting trees is worth it.  Wood use is very prominent in many phases of construction from building large buildings to small toys for kids.  Wood is an important product in our everyday lives, but what are the positive and negative effects of using wood in construction?

The Good

Wood has been engineered over time to become a suitable building product for the construction of office buildings, homes, and schools. Engineered wood refers to products that change slightly from natural wood so that the limitations it possesses are lowered and desired characteristics are enhanced (Zastrow). Some common engineered wood products include plywood, face veneer, particle board, fiberboard, wood flooring, and glulam. These products have made it possible to begin building larger skyscrapers out of wood to decrease the carbon emission from using construction products such as cement and metal. Using engineering technology, densified wood has been made which is considered “as strong as steel” (Zastrow).

The Bad

As there are many good qualities of using wood for construction, wood does have some major limitations. Some of these limitations include warping, swelling/ shrinking, rotting, and knots that effect the strength. As longitudinal shrinkage is negligible, the loss or addition of moisture causes a wood to shrink or expand in the tangential and radial directions. The tangential direction of wood has the most shrinkage being 4-12% (Dimensional Shrinkage).  To help prevent shrinkage, wood can be dried, but this is an expensive process. Normally, wood used for homes is dried to about 7% to help prevent the doors, drawers, cabinets, floorboards, and other wooden material in the house from warping or sticking when opening (Dimensional Shrinkage).  Another major issue when using wood for construction is its ability to grow fungi and begin to decay. When fungi begin to grow on the wood, the plant cells degrade and the carbon in the plant material is converted to carbon dioxide gas and the wood begins to lose strength and weight (Pasanen). Wood is usually treated with preservatives, but over time the wood is still subject to decay, especially when used outdoors. Knots of trees form when a branch dies or is removed from the trunk of the tree. In knots, the direction of the grain of the wood is changed which causes a decrease in strength almost as if there was just a hole in that area.

The “Neutral”

Trees are considered carbon neutral. This means that that carbon they can sequester carbon for a large time period, but then emit the carbon back into the atmosphere at the end of their life. While growing, trees can sequester as much as 48 pounds of carbon dioxide per year and about 1 ton of carbon dioxide by the time the tree is 40 years old (Evans). This sequestered carbon dioxide stays trapped in the tree though its construction of buildings, paper making, wooden toys, and many other objects made of from trees.  Trees are considered major carbon reservoirs. Many people believe that the carbon stored in trees is completely limited from the atmosphere. However, this is not the case because carbon is released back into the atmosphere when the tree begins to decay.  Many building materials emit carbon dioxide immediately during construction, but trees are different.  This allows trees to be neutral since the amount of carbon dioxide they emit is generally similar to the amount of carbon dioxide they store.

Resources

 “Dimensional Shrinkage.” The Wood Database, https://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/dimensional-shrinkage/.

Evans, Evr. Tree Facts. https://projects.ncsu.edu/project/treesofstrength/treefact.htm.

Pasanen, Anna-Liisa, et al. “Fungal Growth and Survival in Building Materials under Fluctuating Moisture and Temperature Conditions.” International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation, Elsevier, 4 Dec. 2000, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0964830500000937.

Zastrow, Mark. “Crushed Wood Is Stronger than Steel.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 7 Feb. 2018, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01600-6.