Evening star., 1952-03-28
10 to 20% Of All Wood
Now Is Woste Product
Maryland U. Chemists Report
On Studies With Lignin

Maryland U. Chemists Report
On Studies With Lisnin
By Thomos R. Henry
One Of the worlds major waste
products is lignin. which constitutes from
10 to 40 per cent Of all wood.
Last year about 80 million tons were
flushed into rivers from paper mills and
otherwise discarded yet It II made up Of
some Of the basic materials Of foods and
plastics. One Of the TROUBLES Is that
nobody knows just what b In lignin. It
is so complex chemists can't entirely
analyze it.
But two University of Maryland chem
lists. working under grants from the
Once Of Naval Research, are beginning
to crack the cell and change this great
waste into something which win be
useful. It can be done only by means Of
NUNS Of evolution, have acquired the
ability to 'est' lignin. Ii is totally un-
fitted as food for any higher animal.
Drs. Michael J. Pelczar and Sidney
Gottlieb have made their greatest prog
ress. they have just reported to the
Navy. with white rot fungi. /" responsible
for . moldlike growth on forest trees.
These fungi can digest lignin In nature.
extracting the cellulose and leaving
behind the odd mixture Of other mate.
rails which are indigestible.
Techniques Prove Difficult.
Test-tube cultures Of this mold were
nrar1orod ND tnloaod en1, invHr
tanning lignin. A few of the cultures
grew. The technique has proved ex-
tremely difiicult one trouble being that
oxygen must be supplied constantly to
the mold. Under ideal circumstances.
DR.. Pelczar says, it has been possible to
secure conversion Of as much as 20 per
some reason which cannot be deter.
mined. the mold cultures refuse to grow.
Lignin gradually is split up by the
molds and bacteria of the soil. It is
converted into an appreciable part Of
forest humus and thus returned into the
cycle Of nature. Drs. Pelczar and Got.
tlieb have just obtained from the Uni
versity Of Illinois about 100 cultures Of
a family of soil molds known as acti-
nomycetes, closely related to the molds
AAOAA ouACPvOAAyC04 40 uClAtCoe
among which they hope to find lignin.
eater.
It is more likely. they claim. that O
soil fungus will operate effectively In Q
culture medium.
They also have obtained many bac-
terra from water and mud Of the Fox
River, which receives paper-mill wastes
from Green Bay and Appleton. Wis. It
Is quite likely, they claim. that some Of
these micro-organisms may have evolved
the faculty Of converting lignin-espe-
cially those some distance down the
river where the waste is beginning to
thin out. None, as yet. have shown any
ability in this line.
Call Results Encouraging.
BY use Of some micro organism, It 10
hoped, it will be possible to resolve q
greater part Of the waste product into
simple chemicals such as acetic acid,
sugars and lower alcohols. These, in
turn, can be converted into great
number Of industrial products. DR.. Pei
car says 1.-The techniQues and methods
necessary for further progress are now
at hand and encouraging results have
been obtained"
The investigators have taken q lead
from past experiments of chemists with
ceiluloSe, which constitutes the greater
part Of wood. Wood has been treated
with acids to convert the cellulose t0
sugar, which then is fermented into
alcohol and other products. Such
methods now yield 50 to so gallons of
alcohol per ton of wood, at q cost Of
around Is cents gallon. In addition
the wood cellulose has been used in tho
production Of large crops Of yeast cells
which have considerable food value.
During the last war. for example, Ger
mans produced as much as $4,000 tons
OF yeast annually for human food.
In all such processes the lignin re.
mains unchanged and is discarded. The
wood cut in the United States runs close
to 200 million tons year. More than
rs million tons of this was lignin, which
was nearly complete waste.
A good deal Of it. DIR. Pelczar points
out was dumped into streams in the
form Of solution Of calcium ligosul-
fonate, by-product Of paper manufac-
turing. It creates q serious waterways
pollution problem.
One small use has been found. From
lignin can be extracted q raw product
used in the synthesis of vanillin, the
essential material in vanilla extract. But
one medium-sized paper mill can supply
sufficient of this raw material every year
to fill the worlds requirement for vanilla.