Watermelons may be the perfect food for a lazy summer afternoon,
but do they also hold what your engine needs to get it running? The
USDA's South Central Agricultural Research Lab believes so. The
research lab just wrapped up a new
study, published in the journal Biotechnology for Biofuels,
which examined the viability of watermelon as a biofuel
feedstock.
According to the researchers, watermelons are a near perfect
biofuel crop for temperate climates. At the bottom of the USDA
researchers' plan is harvesting waste melons. According to the
research, "About 20% of each annual watermelon crop is left in
the field because of surface blemishes or because they are misshapen;
currently these are lost to growers as a source of revenue."
The USDA instead proposes to harvest these malformed melons and
put them to good use as a biofuel feedstock. The USDA
researchers believe a waste stream of 500 L/t (liters per ton) could
be feasible in the near future. With typical yields at about
20,000 to 40,000 pounds per acre on successful farms, this equates to
roughly 10 to 20 liters per acre. With 57,186
hectares devoted to watermelon growing in 2004, this equates to
roughly 1.4-2.8 million liters annually.
The USDA researchers believe that growing production of the fruit
will lead to increasing yields of waste melons. Packed with
so-called "neutraceuticals" (healthful compounds from
natural sources) -- lycopene (also found in tomatoes) and
L-citrulline -- demand for the melons is growing. The USDA
believes that the combination of extracting financially valuable
nutrients from the melons, selling them for food, and using the
leftovers for fuel feedstock, will both help farmers and the biofuel
industry.
The melons themselves have approximately 7-10 percent directly
fermentable sugars by weight/volume. They also have 15 to 35
umol/ml of free amino acids, which could also be used to produce
biofuels. By using yeast and controlling the pH, researchers
were able to raise the fermentation rates to 35 percent of the w/v.
Returning to our original estimates of the liters per year,
give the USDA's statements, this would make for approximately 500,000
to 1 million liters of ethanol per year.
The study looked at producing ethanol from the melons. In
the U.S. most ethanol is produced from
corn grown specifically for that purpose (not waste). The
melon juice could also prove an ample feedstock for other types of
biofuels, such as biodiesel, or biogasoline.