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NCERC exploring news uses for corn
The director of the National Corn to Ethanol Research Center says they have some big research projects in the works paving the way to new uses for US corn.
John Caupert tell Brownfield they are finding more and more products can be made from corn ethanol instead of petroleum.
“The latest would be in polymers. Polymers can range from a plastic bottle that contains drinking water, to carpet fibers, all the way to possibly the fibers that are in clothing.”
He says a recent global boom in the aquaculture industry is also an opportunity or corn growers.
“We are taking corn, we are running it through a conventional or a modified corn to ethanol process, then heighten the level of digestible protein in the ethanol co-product which then makes for a very high value, high protein to be utilized in aquaculture diets.”
The National Corn to Ethanol Research Center, located on the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville campus, was a product of the 1996 Farm Bill to help create and commercialize products and technologies utilizing corn ethanol.
