Phys.org, The Penobscot Times carry release on furfural derivatives, marketability of biofuel production
Phys.org and The Penobscot Times published a University of Maine news release about the sale of furfural derivatives and how they can make renewable fuel production more financially attractive to potential investors. Kaveh Dalvand, a researcher in the School of Economics at UMaine, worked with a team to find co-products of renewable fuel, with a focus on the platform chemical furfural, to find the ones that would not influence the market prices of other co-products. The researchers found that two furfural derivatives can be produced and sold instead of furfural, and that converting furfural to these derivatives would result in higher revenue for the entire renewable fuel process, the release states. The other UMaine researchers on the team are Jonathan Rubin, a professor of economics; Sampath Gunukula, a postdoctoral research engineer with the Forest Bioproducts Research Institute; Clayton Wheeler, a professor of chemical and biomedical engineering; and Gary Hunt, a professor of economics.