Cool Corn Competition – A look behind NCGA’s 6 Consider Corn Challenge III winners

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) won for their Acrylonitrile to Carbon Fiber work which is used as a lightweight replacement for steel and aluminum in products like vehicles.

Acrylonitrile is a major commodity chemical employed in many diverse, commercial applications—from clothing to carpets to plastics. Additionally, acrylonitrile can be polymerized to polyacrylonitrile, which is the primary building block in carbon fiber composites. Because of its many advantageous physical properties—high strength, light weight, high temperature tolerance, and high chemical resistance—carbon fiber has become extremely important in today’s world.

Perhaps most importantly, carbon fiber can be used for lightweighting applications in automotive and air transportation, as well as the aerospace industry—replacing heavier materials like steel with lightweight carbon fibers to lower vehicle weight and improve fuel efficiency. For example, replacing the steel and aluminum used in today’s cars would result in the fuel economy of the average car increasing by nearly 50% and greenhouse gas emissions being reduced by 20%–40%. As a result, the demand for carbon fibers is projected to increase 11%–18% annually.

But nearly all commercial acrylonitrile is produced today via an energy-intensive, chemically hazardous, petroleum-based process. But times are changing thanks to NREL’s work in this area using corn stover. You can read more about their research and tech here.