August 23, 2012

Biorefinery makes use of every bit of a soybean




The corn industry produces almost 4,000 products from every bushel. Oil refineries produce fuels and ingredients for an estimated 6,000 products with a thoroughness that actually squeezes 44 gallons of products from every 42-gallon barrel of crude.

Scientists today unveiled new technology intended to move soybeans, second only to corn as the top food crop in the U.S., along that same use-to-all path as a raw material for a wider portfolio of products. They described it ― a new integrated soybean biorefinery ― at the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society, being held here through Thursday.


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