Our group, in collaboration with the Universidad
Nacional del Litoral (Argentina) and the UNED (Spain), has developed for
the first time a method that employs carrot discards to produce bioethanol. In 2010 more than 420.000 tonnes of carrots were collected
in Spain, according to the data of the Ministry of Agriculture. About 20% of
the crop was discarded because the form or size of the carrots did not fulfil
with the standards required.
The
researchers are treating to develop the method in pilot scale. The plant is
scheduled to be built in the province of
Santa Fe (Argentina), and will be able to process between 8-10 tonnes
of carrots per day.