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South Korean student produces bioethanol from dead seaweed

South Korean Pukyong National University’s graduate student Seonwoo In-young has succeeded in producing bioethanol using dead seaweed that washed ashore after a tropical storm.

Seaweed plays an essential role as a food source, habitat, and spawning ground for marine organisms, but only when it is alive underwater.

Dead seaweed, frequently found on beaches, has so far been mere waste and has required disposal. 

Biofuel production using seaweed is widely practiced around the world, but according to the school, dead seaweed has rarely been successfully used to make biofuel. 

“The research is significant in that it proposed an eco-friendly alternative for dead seaweed, which not only causes pollution but also results in high maintenance costs,” Seonwoo’s academic advisor Kim Sung-gu told The Korea Bizwire.

The 26-year-old scientist’s experiment took place last year after collecting the dead sea plants from Busan’s Gwangalli Beach. 

She heated the dead seaweed at 160°C with 80g/l of sulfuric acid, and fermented the concoction with yeast for three days, ultimately producing 19g/l of bioethanol. 

The process – pre-processing and fermentation – is the subject of a patent application, the university said in a statement. 

Seonwoo’s research paper on the process also won her an award at the 2016 Young Asian Biochemical Engineers’ Community (YABEC), hosted this year at Miyazaki, Japan, on 27-29 October.

YABEC is an international scholastic society maintained jointly by Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and China that hands awards each year to two young researchers recognised for scientific excellence. 





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