Paper chemicals from sugar instead of oil - biorefining is here?

Seen today Biopact .............. an approach for replacing crude oil with a renewable raw material from plants.

Scientists from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) reported in Science this week that they have developed an approach for 'efficient biorefining' in directly convert sugars into a primary building block for fuel and polyesters. "Using a novel non-acidic catalytic system containing metal chloride catalysts in a solvent capable of dissolving cellulose, the scientists succeeded in extracting HMF (hydroxymethylfurfural), obtaining 70% yields of glucose and almost 90% for fructose."

Early days but certainly a way forward for reducing reliance on petrochemicals.