Technology turns glycerin into ethanol

HOUSTON, June 25 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have developed a technology designed to convert waste glycerin from biodiesel plants into ethanol, another popular biofuel.

Rice University Assistant Professor Ramon Gonzalez and colleagues identified the metabolic processes and conditions that allow a strain of E. coli to convert glycerin into ethanol.

"It's also very efficient," said Gonzalez. "We estimate the operational costs to be about 40 percent less that those of producing ethanol from corn."

U.S. biodiesel production is at an all-time high, but the industry is also facing a significant problem in how to deal with waste glycerin. One pound of glycerin is produced for every 10 pounds of biodiesel, Gonzalez noted.

The research by Gonzalez, research associate Syed Shams Yazdani and graduate students Yandi Dharmadi and Abhishek Murarka is reported in the journal Current Opinion in Biotechnology.