Word: lignin
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...Lignin plastics and vanillin made from sulphite liquor, onetime waste product of the wood-pulp paper industry...
...most useful men in warring Germany, and one of the most hated by those who have to eat his Ersatz foods. From sawdust Bergius has extracted a digestible sugar, equal in food value to barley. Of the sawdust 60% to 65% becomes sugar, 5% acetic acid, 30% lignin which can again be used to make charcoal or wallboard. The sugar can be converted into protein by treatment with yeast; into fat by feeding it to pigs. Apparently, up to the outbreak of World War II, food-from-sawdust in Germany was fed only to animals...
From sulphite liquor, in the course of a decade, Chemist Howard and his helpers drew a reddish-brown goo: lignin. From lignin they extracted vanillin (synthetic vanilla), now used for flavoring by many big sweets and ice cream manufacturers; Maratan, a chemical for tanning hides; T. D. A., a chemical for improving the quality of cement. Faster than dizzy Marathon officials could find markets for them, Guy Howard turned out new byproducts...
Last week he could sit back and smile as sheets of lignin plastic, made from the residue after vanillin had been extracted, rolled off the machines. Marathon officials described...
Marathon is now producing the new lignin plastic at the rate of 25 tons a day, has raw materials on hand for a top production of 400 tons daily. Last year the company's net sales were $11,109,000. Last week its officials announced a $1,500,000 expansion program. But Chemist Howard was still scouting ahead. His goal: to establish his new chemical talk-of-the-town as the most important addition to the world's store of raw materials since coal tar and cellulose...