New Blog One: Autoshopper

Autoshopper

Tulane's research has identified a new bacterial strain that can break down the cellulose in old newspapers and transform it into butanol. Dubbed TU-103, the strain was originally found in animal dung at the zoo in Tulane's host city New Orleans.

A patent is pending on the bacterial strain, but the future for it and butanol remains uncertain. So far, there isn't an infrastructure for fueling vehicles with butanol, despite the fact that it could be used in unmodified gasoline engines. It also has a higher energy value than ethanol.

The industry might want to start looking more closely at it, though. According to Harshad Velankar, one of the Tulane researchers working on the project, some 323 million tons of cellulostic material is thrown away annually in the United States. According to the Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center, biobutanol is less corrosive than ethanol and could likely be distributed through the existing gasoline supply infrastructure.