K-state engineer researching how sorghum can meet the need for ethanol in agricultural regions where corn's potential is nearly exhausted

CheckBioTech.com
June 13, 2008
By Donghai Wang
MANHATTAN, KS - Corn is the key grain crop used in the production of fuel ethanol in the United States. As demand for ethanol has increased, so has construction of new ethanol facilities.

But in some areas of the Corn Belt, concentration of these facilities is reaching near saturation relative to the volume of corn grain available. Statistics show that if the entire 2007 corn crop had gone for ethanol production, it still would have only met less than 17 percent of U.S. energy needs.

That's why Donghai Wang, associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering at Kansas State University, is researching how sorghum might solve this problem. Funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a U.S. Department of Transportation SunGrant, the Kansas Sorghum Commission and the K-State Agricultural Experiment Station, Wang's current research is threefold.

He is investigating sorghum as a viable renewable resource for biofuels, as well as developing a comprehensive understanding and utilization of sorghum stover and forage sorghum for ethanol production. He's also researching the use of sweet sorghum for ethanol production.

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