Although with today's globe getting smaller due to technology and the speed of communication, there are times when geographic juxtaposition is definitely an asset. Case in point --It's just about a 50 mile drive southwest on I-72 from the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois to Archer Daniels Midland in Decatur. This close proximity as well as their common interests is working in their favor as the two institutions collaborate on projects.

"ADM recently received funding from the USDA and the Department of Energy and specifically wanted to fund projects that were looking at ways to increase the value of co-product streams produced from both the dry and wet mill biorefineries. One approach would be to use corn fiber to develop alternative fuels and other products," said Hans Blaschek, a microbiologist in the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. "This is an area of my research as well as the interest of other researchers at the U of I."

After many meetings and proposals being reviewed, ADM selected six U of I projects for funding. "The six projects are all related to examination of alternative and more efficient uses for co-products produced from corn wet and dry milling operations," said Blaschek.

Blaschek is serving as facilitator overseeing the six projects, one of which is his own. He and Thaddeus Ezeji, a post-doctoral research associate in his laboratory, have been studying the fermentation of corn co-products such as corn fiber hydrolysates to produce acetone-butanol using a bacterium called Clostridium beijerinckii. The project being funded by ADM will help Blaschek examine the ability of this microorganism to utilize the carbohydrates remaining following fermentation by the yeast. The more complete utilization of the carbohydrates is expected to improve the overall efficiency and economic viability of the ethanol fermentation.

Blaschek believes that alternative fuels have the potential for utilizing up to 500 million additional bushels of corn, particularly corn that has been contaminated and so is unsuitable for human consumption or animal feed.

Three of the other five projects funded are with scientists in the animal sciences department at the U of I. George Fahey is leading a project to derive high-value chemicals and oils from lower value corn fiber economically. Another project entitled, "Roadmap for Biomass Technology in the United States" is looking at the big picture of supply and demand of corn, animal feed and fuel and is led by Larry Berger. Rod Mackie and Isaac Cann's project will identify and characterize enzymes involved in the degradation and utilization of corn fiber (arabinoxylan).

Steve Eckhoff in the Agricultural and Biological Engineering department at the U of I will be exploring several alternative methods to recover the germ and the coarse fiber. The objective here will be to find an economical means to recover corn germ and fiber via dry-milling specific technology prior to fermentation of the starch to ethanol.

The sixth project headed by Yuanhui Zhang and Xinlei Wang, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, will conduct batch tests and develop a continuous thermal hydrolysis process for conversion of the fiber stream from corn milling into a form that can be easily further utilized by various processes such as fermentation. The objective is to find proper operating conditions of the thermal hydrolysis process, thus providing design parameters for a pilot-scale plant.

Author: Debra Levey Larson