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Putting termites to work
August 26, 2008

Last week my colleague Mark Hoske sent me a link to an interesting article from the NIST Tech Beat about making ethanol from non-food biomass, including switchgrass, corn stalks, wood, and other cellulosic sources. Actually, the article is more along the lines of why we haven't been all that successful trying to create a commercially viable process. Basically it says that while glucose can be extracted from cellulose and hemicellulose, those substances are very difficult to break down. The chemical bonds that form those molecules are very strong and will not give up their glucose without a fight.

As we know, there are animals that are capable of creating biofuels, some directly from cellulose. We've already discussed cows and other ruminants. But when it comes to breaking down cellulose, it's hard to beat termites. One article I found discusses efforts to capture methane from termite mounds, with calculations as to the daily production for a single termite. Just in case you want a useful trivia answer, it has been measured at between 0.397 and 0.425 micrograms of methane per termite per day, depending on the specific species.

Perhaps this knowledge is not going to free you from your gas bill this winter, but researchers have spent a lot of time trying to duplicate what goes on in those disgusting white bugs and a cow's stomach(s). Until we can come up with something commercially viable, the only practical way to get energy from wood will be to burn it, either in a gasification process or the fireplace. It's crude, but effective.

Posted by Peter Welander on August 26, 2008 | Comments (0)