Greek yogurt could be an unlikely source of sustainable jet plane fuel, researchers have shown.
Scientists have found a way to turn waste products from yogurt production into a raw material for biofuel and livestock feed additives.
Whey left over from the manufacturing process mostly consists of the milk sugar lactose, the sugar fructose and lactic acid.
Further processing to add more carbon elements to the compounds could yield a "drop-in" biofuel that can be mixed into jet fuel, said the scientists, whose work has been published in the journal Joule".
Both compounds qualified as "green antimicrobials" that could be added to livestock feed to replace standard antibiotics.
US lead researcher Professor Lars Angenent, from Cornell University, New York, said: "To be sustainable, you want to convert waste streams where they are made, and upstate New York is where the cows are, where the dairy farmers are, and where the Greek yogurt craze began in the United States.
"That's a lot of acid whey that right now has to be driven to faraway locations for land application, but we want to produce valuable chemicals from it instead.
Turning acid whey into a feedstock that animals can eat is an important example of the closed cycles that we need in a sustainable society."
