Watermelon, the quintessential summer fruit, may soon be helping to fuel your car as well as your picnic guests.
According to a new U.S. government study, juice from unwanted watermelons could be a promising new source for making the biofuel ethanol.
Up to a fifth of all watermelons grown each year have odd shapes or scarred rinds that turn off consumers, said study co-author Wayne Fish, a chemist with the Agricultural Research Service in Lane, Oklahoma.
Instead of picking the fruit, farmers leave these reject melons on the vine.
“If you figure a field of watermelon may yield somewhere between 60 and 100 tons per acre of watermelon, a fifth of that can be substantial,” Fish said.
When he and colleagues were experimenting with extracting antioxidant compounds from watermelon juice, they realized the waste stream of sugary fluids could be a source of ethanol.
(Compare the costs and benefits of different biofuels.)
To read the rest of John Roach’s National Geograpgic News article, click HERE.
