Although the stalks and leaves of a corn plant can be turned into ethanol, the high cost of collecting, storing, and transporting the material has limited its use in producing the fuel.
Ajay Shah, an agricultural engineer with The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) is testing a method that could cut the cost of collecting and delivering corn plant material for making ethanol by up to 20%.
Shah just received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to test the effectiveness of a new method that harvests and transports corn plants intact, the ears together with the stalks. Shah’s strategy has the potential to spur the lagging industry of so-called cellulosic ethanol—ethanol produced from the inedible parts of plants, most commonly corn plants in the United States.
Read more about Ajay Shah's method for turning agricultural waste to renewable fuel.