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Microbes help turn Greek yogurt waste into fuel

December 13, 2017 from Science Daily

"Researchers in the United States and Germany have found a way to use bacteria to turn the leftover sugars and acids from Greek yogurt into molecules that could be used in biofuels or safe feedstock additives. Their work appears December 13 in the journal Joule."
"Waste whey from Greek yogurt production is made up mostly of the familiar milk sugar lactose, the fruit sugar building block fructose, and the fermentation product lactic acid. The researchers use bacteria to turn this mixture into an extract containing two more useful compounds: caproic acid (n-hexanoic acid) and caprylic acid (n-octanoic acid). Both of these compounds are "green antimicrobials" that can be fed to livestock in lieu of antibiotics. Or, with energy needs in mind, further processing could stitch the six-, seven-, and eight-carbon backbones of the obtained molecules into the chains of up to 14 needed to qualify as "drop-in" biofuels for jet fuel."