Researchers use electrocatalysis of carbon dioxide to create electro-biodiesel

In North Carolina, trees are the most abundant natural resource living on Earth’s land masses, and North Carolina State University scientists and engineers are making headway in finding ways to use them as sustainable, environmentally benign alternatives to producing industrial chemicals from petroleum.

Lignin, a polymer that makes trees rigid and resistant to degradation, has proven problematic. Now those NC State researchers know why: They’ve identified the specific molecular property of lignin — its methoxy content — that determines just how hard, or easy, it would be to use microbial fermentation to turn trees and other plants into industrial chemicals.

The findings put us a step closer to making industrial chemicals from trees as an economically and environmentally sustainable alternative to chemicals derived from petroleum, said the corresponding author of a paper in the journal Science Advances detailing the discovery.