Grass to Gas

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FFA agri-science winner checked grasses for ethanol viability

Eric Koehlmoos set out to determine what might yield the most ethanol – switch grass, prairie grass or wheat straw. The Paulina, Iowa FFA member not only found out that the grasses produce more ethanol than corn does, the project won him a prize at the FFA Agri-science Fair last week in Louisville, Kentucky.

Interestingly, and what made Koehlmoos curious, the grasses grow on marginal land, the same land on which wheat is grown. So Koehlmoos checked to see if wheat straw could produce enough ethanol to entice plants to be built where wheat is grown.

“Maybe then we could get the wheat straw production from your high productive lands and then get switch grass and prairie grass grown in marginal lands for ethanol production,” Koehlmoos told Brownfield Ag News last week in Louisville, Ky., where he awarded the prize.

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From the National FFA:

A member of the National FFA Organization is being celebrated today at a White House event for students who excel in science.

Eric Koehlmoos, 18, of Iowa, is a member of the South O’Brien FFA Chapter in Paulina, Iowa. He was invited to the 2015 White House Science Fair that celebrates the accomplishments of student winners of a broad range of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions throughout the United States.

More than 100 of the nation’s brightest young minds will be welcomed to the fifth White House Science fair. In the past, innovative inventions, discoveries and science projects have been showcased.

Koehlmoos’ project, “Grass to Gas,” consisted of three years of research with prairie cordgrass and switch grass and their potential impact in the cellulosic ethanol industry.

“Because I come from a farm background I was very interested in the biofuel industry and the new cellulosic ethanol plants being built near my house,” Koehlmoos said.

During his three years of research, Koehlmoos found that both grasses produce nearly 200 more gallons of ethanol per acre than corn and wheat straw, two mainstream methods for ethanol production. He also discovered that when both grasses are pretreated with calcium hydroxide, ethanol yields are increased by as much as 80 percent and produces a byproduct that has higher protein values than corn distiller grains.

Koehlmoos plans to continue his research in college and would ultimately like to use these grasses to commercially produce ethanol in the Southern Plains, which would provide a sustainable solution to importing foreign oil while also not competing with the food supply.

 

Source:  Brownfield Ag News and the National FFA Organization

 

 

Photo from the National FFA Organization

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