SUGAR FROM WOOD

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3468, 19 May 1934, Page 3

SUGAR FROM WOOD

A SCIENTIST’S INVESTI-

GATIONS.

A nation’s food, supply is its first consideration, and'the extent to which this supply is indigenous is a matter of distinct economic importance. The amount of home-grown food is conditioned largely by the extent of the arable and pasture land available; forest ’ land, however valuable as a commercial asset, yields very little in the waft* of a primary supply of food.

More bn an usual interest attaches, therefore, to a lecture delivered in London by Dr F. Bergius, the chemist whose name is associated so closely with the production of oils from coal by hydrogenation. The lecture dealt with a commercial process for producing sugars—that is, foodstuffs—from wood.

Wood consists mainly of two allied materials, cellulose and lignin, in about equal amounts, and sugars are fairly closely related chemically to cellulose. It has been known for at least 120 years that cellulose can be converted to sugars.—that is, in the laboratory—but not on a commerciallv economic scale.

To Dr Bergius and his collaborators—and not forgetting the financiers who had faith in the application of science to industry—must be given much credit for having put the saccharification of wood on a commercial basis.

The process yields at least four commercial products, with practically no waste products. The lignin of the wood is not affected by the chemical reactions involved in the process, but is finally separated in a form that enables it to be briquetted quite easily, the briquettes being used as household fuel, or it can be pressed into slabs suitable for structural purposes.

The cellulose yields two types of sugar —that which is obtained in smaller amount, and in a pure state, and is said to be a safe food for diabetic patients; while the main antount of" sugar is. of the type of cane sugar. This latter is not pure, but simple treatment converts it into

an excellent food for cattle, and particularly pigs. The fourth product is pure acetic acid.

Besides yielding these materials, the process marks a distinct advance in certain directions in some chemical engineering problems. The process calls for the use of concentrated hydrochloric acid, and hitherto the handling of this on a manufacturing scale has been attended by certain technical difficulties, particularly where heat and pressure are needed. Apparently these difficulties have been surmounted by Dr Bergius and his staff. It is interesting to note in passing that the factory at Rheinau, in which was carried out much of the early work on the hydrogenation of coal, was* adapted for use in the present investigation. Touching on matters of commercial significance, the lecturer states: “Wood sugar can be produced at a lower price than cane sugar is produced in countries of the tonid zone. For the over-populated industrialised European countries, therefore, the wood hydrolysis process may become an important factor towards independence of a food supply from overseas.” One may note, too, that the piocess may give added zest to schemes of afforestation, in that it may do much to solve the problem of the disposal of the waste wood.