U.S. ‘Alchemists’ Try to Turn Corn Into Gold
American farmers, having grown more corn than man or animal can eat let alone store, are looking to science to use up the bounty. They are not being let down.
If current research pans out, you may one day melt the ice on your sidewalk with a corn-based product, or carry out your garbage in a biodegradable plastic bag that began life as a cornstalk.
Science has already turned corn into a widely used sweetener called high fructose corn syrup and into ethyl alcohol--a far cry from the Great Depression, when corn was burned in furnaces for warmth.
Recent research has indicated that cornstarch may be a remarkable salve for wound healing. Other scientists are looking at a biodegradable plastic made from corn polymers that may have many uses besides reducing the amount of garbage society produces.
There is also potential seen in a corn product--dubbed “the super slurper”--that can absorb 1,000 times its weight in liquids.
Corn prices have fallen to 13-year lows as exports, the main outlet for the crop, plunged during the 1980s.
Another Huge Harvest
Meanwhile farmers have started another harvest of plenty that will make available another 12 billion plus bushels--about 350 million tons.
One bright spot has been corn fructose, which is used primarily in soft drinks. It surpassed sugar usage for the first time last year as Americans consumed roughly an average of 64 pounds each.
Ethanol made from corn is frequently used as a gasoline additive. Its production rose to nearly 750 million gallons in 1986 from less than 100 million gallons in 1980. Ethanol boosts the octane level in gasoline without increasing lead pollutants.
The slide in oil and gasoline prices could mean stagnation for ethanol use temporarily. But producers hope to raise annual output to 2.5 billion gallons by 1990--sufficient to use up 1 billion bushels of corn.
Nor is corn itself the end of the line in current research. Globally, man grows about 20 billion tons of plants--stems, stalks, leaves and all--of all kind of crops each year, according to George Psao, director of the Laboratory of Renewable Resources Engineering (LORRE) at Purdue University.
The carbohydrate research at LORRE is focused on satisfying the world’s need for 2 billion tons of fossil fuels and petroleum-based products a year by utilizing the solar energy released from such plant material.
Have Two Choices
“The food surplus is going to be here for a good long time,” Psao said. “We can do two things: Find other uses or grow something else.”
Farmers have yet to take Psao’s tentative suggestion to grow rubber plants or dandelions for use in various products, he said.
Scientists admit that the drop in oil prices has made this type of research--replacing oil-based products with carbohydrates--less warranted today, even if the oil glut is only temporary.
Ramani Narayan, who developed a biodegradable plastic at LORRE, said farmers and agribusinesses should get into these ventures and compete with the oil-based companies, or nothing will happen.
The drop in corn prices has not stirred the excitement that the drop in oil prices did, Narayan said, even though the price of each was about halved.
“This view is short-sighted,” he said, in that corn starch could be used to make acetates for all kinds of plastics when the oil surplus is a memory.
A product that uses acetic acid to melt ice on roadways--currently in use in Sweden--may some day present a broad market for corn, according to Glen Weckerlin of Chevron Corp. who is in charge of developing calcium magnesium acetate into its offering, “Ice-be-gon.”
Highway departments in the United States use eight million tons of chloride salt to melt ice each winter but the salt corrodes automobiles, bridges and roadways. It also leeches into the ground and contaminates ground water besides being a general nuisance for shoes and clothing.
The salt alternative is a mixture of lime and acetic acid that does not corrode or pollute--but costs as much as 10 times as much as road salt.
But scientists are still working on the details to make corn sugar a viable source for acetic acid. The acid is currently produced synthetically from oil-based products.
“It’s one of the few times you’ll see the oil companies on the same side as the environmentalists,” Weckerlin said. “But someone’s going to have to buy it so there’s a driving force to do more research.” The best case would have these inventions on the market after three years of research and testing.
