Content area
Full Text
At the Eastern Regional Research Center (ERRC) in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, scientists and engineers conduct fundamental, applied, and developmental research on a variety of agricultural commodities. The center finds new uses for staples ranging from milk, meat, poultry, grains, fruits, and vegetables to hides, leather, w ools, fats, proteins, and oils. Examples of these innovations developed during the center's first 60 years can be view ed in the accompanying table.
The center's research projects provide new applications and technologies aimed at ensuring agricultural products that are of high quality, safe, affordable, and don't harm the environment. These projects include innovations in feedstock for biofuels, composite materials, functional-food ingredients, and food-safety interventions. Target outcomes include novel antimicrobial and biobased agents for industrial applications, safer food-processing technologies, food-sustaining edible films and packages, and interventions for eliminating contaminants detected via novel methods.
Here are some highlights from the center's past 15 years.
Producing Bio-oil, a Renew able Biofuel
ERRC scientists have developed methods to turn agricultural biomass byproducts, such as corn and barley residue, into "bio-oil," w hich is a renew able transportation fuel. Bio-oil is produced by "fast pyrolysis," or chemical decomposition of plant matter using high heat. Barley grain, for example, could be used to produce ethanol, a biofuel, w hich is a fossil fuel alternative, and the byproducts could be used to produce bio-oil. The team recently finished construction of a larger mobile pyrolysis unit capable of processing 2 tons of biomass per day -up from 150 pounds of biomass processed daily...