How to make succinic acid, an important chemical intermediate, from biomass.

What is it about?

This article describes a method for producing succinic acid. Succinic acid is a natural chemical from which biodegradable plastics or other useful products can be made. We show how waste materials from agricultural, forestry, or municipal sources can be quickly and inexpensively converted to succinic acid, which means we do not have to use food crops (like corn) or petroleum to make it.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Succinic acid is currently sourced mainly from petroleum. This, however, is non-sustainable. Some companies have also started making succinic acid by fermentation of sugar. This, on the other hand, is an expensive and slow process. Our approach is significant because it uses catalysts instead of microorganisms. It starts from waste biomass instead of sugars, and it is a much faster process than fermentation and potentially also much cheaper, and therefore more industrially relevant.