According
to the calculations of the Forest Products Laboratory of Madison it
costs from 37 to 44 cents a gallon to make alcohol from corn, but it may
be made from sawdust at a cost of from 14 to 20 cents. This is not "wood
alcohol" (that is, methyl alcohol, CH_{4}O) such as is made by the
destructive distillation of wood, but genuine "grain alcohol" (ethyl
alcohol, C_{2}H_{6}O), such as is made by the fermentation of glucose or
other sugar. The first step in the process is to digest the sawdust or
chips with dilute sulfuric acid under heat and pressure. This converts
the cellulose (wood fiber) in large part into glucose ("corn sugar")
which may be extracted by hot water in a diffusion battery as in
extracting the sugar from beet chips. This glucose solution may then be
fermented by yeast and the resulting alcohol distilled off. The process
is perfectly practicable but has yet to be proved profitable. But the
sulfite liquors of the paper mills are being worked up successfully into
industrial alcohol.
The rapidly approaching exhaustion of our oil fields which the war has
accelerated leads us to look around to see what we can get to take the
place of gasoline.
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