Berkeley Lab Researchers Combine Old Fermentation Process
For Making Explosives with New Chemical Catalysis to Boost Biofuel Production
A fermentation technique once used to make cordite, the
explosive propellant that replaced gunpowder in bullets and artillery shells,
may find an important new use in the production of advanced biofuels. With the
addition of a metal catalyst, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy
(DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have shown that
the production of acetone, butanol and ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass
could be selectively upgraded to the high volume production of gasoline, diesel
or jet fuel.