A team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign including Professor Yuanhui Zhang, a bio-environmental engineer, discovered a breakthrough method for converting raw pig waste (manure) into a form of crude oil.

With further research, large-scale chemical processing in a refinery-style environment could help the United States process millions of gallons of "pig crude" per day, making the nation much less dependent on foreign sources of oil.

Currently, no research has been conducted to determine how current commercial vehicles could operate on this type of fuel.

References

• Wisconsin Advanced Technology Advocates Article
• National Geographic Article

Notes