ALCOHOL FROM SAWDUST

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 102, 4 May 1929, Page 27

ALCOHOL FROM SAWDUST

EXPERIMENTAL WORK IN INDIA ! It is stated that favourable results I are being obtained in India on the experimental production of alcohol from sawdust of the gangwa tree, a fastgrowing species. Alcohol is regarded as the logical basis of motor fuel in I India. The glucose obtained is fermented to alcohol, and it has been roughly calculated that waste sawdust from Calcutta mills alone would yield 375,000 gallons of power alcohol yearly, on the basis of experiments using sulphuric acid. The use of fuming hydrochloric acid would give 40 per cent, greater yields, which would then amount to one-sixth the production in India from all sources 3,000,000 gallons being produced at present. , In the experimental work which is being conducted at the University of Calcutta yields of 30 to 33 per cent reducing sugar (glucose) have been obtained from sawmill waste by treatment with sulphuric acid; 7Q per cent, of this sugar material was fermentable, giving 33 to 39 gallons of 90 per cent, alcohol per ton of air-dried sawdust. The use of fuming hydrochloric acid in the initial hydrolysis gave higher yields of reducing sugar and 48 to 57 gallons of alcohol per ton of sawdust. Special acid resisting vessels, such as are being manufactured now from synthetic plastics, would be required if hydrochloric acid is used.