Power your car... with watermelons?
Thu, May 28 2009 at 2:31 AM EST
Photo by Martin Bradbery With summer just around the corner, it won't be long before we can once again quench our thirst with a juicy slice of watermelon. But of the 400 billion pounds of watermelons grown each year, 800 million pounds are rejected because they are either blemished or deformed.
Now there is a use for all those rotting watermelons.
Science Daily reports that a 20 pound watermelon can yield a 1.5 pounds of sugar, enough to produce 7/10 of a pound of ethanol. And chemist Wayne Fish has also shown that ethanol can be extracted from the waste stream of watermelons used for nutraceuticals (like lycopene a powerful anti-oxident).
This is good news for the watermelon industry. Farmers gain an extra cash crop and the nutraceutical industry which extracts watermelon compounds, will have reduced waste water treatment expenses.
Agricultural Research Services (ARS) is perfecting a method for extracting watermelon ethanol and developing an intercropping method, whereby other ethanol crops like sweet sorghum could be rotated with the watermelon crop, providing a year-round source of ethanol.
via: Fast Company
Link
EMAIL
Stumble
Tweet
The opinions expressed by MNN Bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect
the opinions of MNN.com. While we have reviewed their content to make sure it complies with our Terms and Conditions,
MNN is not responsible for the accuracy of any of their information.
| « Previous White paint: a surprising cure for global warming | Next » A star (factory) is born! |
.jpg){kind=logo}
Refreshing New Way To Use Blemished Fruits!
Imagine if our culture simply just gave up the produce snobbery once and for all...just like that, cold turkey. We have become a chronically wasteful nation -- one which perceives pimpled and pock-marked fruits and vegetables (which nature DID intend) as inferior and not worthy of our pie holes. It is sheer insanity considering that people are starving all over the world and yet we have so much food in our own backyards that we casually discard anything that doesn't resemble a supermodel..... More