Sweet competition with oil
It took many crises and wars before the western industrial nations realized that they are painfully dependent on oil. New sources of energy and plastics offer a way out that is also more ecologically compatible. Fructose, for example, can do more than just sweeten coffee.
The product mainly comes from politically unstable regions. Must be transported over thousands of kilometers in special vehicles. Again and again it comes to accidents with catastrophic consequences for the affected areas. When it burns, it releases climate-changing gases and harmful substances. And it's constantly being burned because that's one of its main purposes. As long as there are any. Because the reserves of crude oil are coming to an end.
It may be difficult to explain to future generations why it took until the beginning of the 21st century for mankind to look for better alternatives for energy and basic chemical supplies. She takes up the search very late – and finds what she is surprisingly quick. After biodiesel made from rapeseed and sunflowers, another raw material could soon be in the starting blocks for an economically and ecologically more sustainable variant: fructose.
Scientifically speaking, what the scientists led by James Dumesic from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have achieved sounds pretty sober: They converted fructose into 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). Not as the first, but with the best method so far. This would also not be remarkable if HMF were not suitable as a universal raw material for the production of plastics or diesel fuel."Instead of using the sun's energy, which was stored in fossil fuels in ancient times, we're trying to use the carbon dioxide and solar energy that plants absorb today," says Dumesic. A complete cycle, if the conversion were to succeed on a large scale.
So far, the researchers in the laboratory can at least show a conversion rate of 80 percent. To do this, they start with a thick aqueous sugar solution that consists of up to half fructose. Acidic catalysts such as hydrochloric acid snatch water from the sweet molecules until HMF and some by-products end up floating in the water. The coveted HMF goes into an organic solvent from which it can be easily extracted without having to stop the process. All in all a well-balanced flow of chemistry, reaction conditions and reactor design, for which a patent is already pending.
The HMF can be further processed in a number of reaction chains and ultimately replace petroleum-based products both as a plastic bottle and as a drug base. A step in the right direction. And yet only a beginning. In the meantime, Dumesic and his team are already working on other methods of converting sugar. Seems like a new era is slowly dawning.
