Prevention: Making Chemicals and Industrial Materials from Plant Matter

One hundred andflfty years ago, carbohydrates from plant matter In all forms proulded the raw materlals for many lndustrlal products. By the 1970s. howeuer, the carbohydrate had been dlsplaced by hydrocarbons as the molecular bulldfng block of our Industrial economy. Now. technologlcal advances, enulronmental regulatlons. and green consumerism haue set the stage for the carbohydrate economy to make a remarkable comeback. The lmpllcatlons for buslness could be profound. PLANT MATTER CONTAINS several key substances that mnke it valuable as an industrial raw material, including carbohydrabes, plant oils, and proteins. At the turn of the century, trees, fruits and vegetables, and other crops-carbohydrates-provided the raw materials for most nonfood consumer products, including dyes, inks, paints, medicines, clothing, synthetic fibers, and plastics. By the 1970s, however, products derived from plants had become little more than bit players on the industrial stage. Hydrocarbonbased technologies, propelled by favorable economics, had captured over 95 percent of the market previously held by products made from plant matter. Now the pendulum may be swinging back. Over the past decade, advances in biotechnologies have lowered the price of chemicals and other industrial products made from plant matter, while environmental regulations have raised the price of petroleum-based products. Moreover, as environmental regulations continue to force price increases of fossil fuels to reflect the costs of the problems they createfrom acid rain and smog to global warming and hazardous waste-the expansion of carbohydrate-based product manufacturing could provide solutions to many of these problems. For instance, plant matter contains negligible amounts of sulfur and nitrogen and thus, when burned, contributes little to acid rain. Burning plant matter generates no more carbon dioxide than is absorbed by the growingplant and soitdoesnot destabilize theglobalclimate.Vegetableoi1-basedpaints and soybean oil-based inks generate fewer volatile emissions. Sugarand starch-based plastics are degradable. Liquid fuels made from crops contain oxygen and thus diminish harmful tailpipe emissions of carbon monoxide.