Experiments in Germany have proved a method of making a feedstock for the plastics industry from sugar, a government-backed agency said Thursday. The reaction converts any sugar, whether glucose, fructose or sucrose, into so-called short-chain polyalcohols, a material used by the petrochemicals industry to produce both polyurethane and polyester. The Special Agency for Renewable Raw Materials FNR said, in a statement carried by Deutsch Presse Agentur (dpa), the experiments were conducted by the German arm of Dow Chemical and the state-backed Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology in the Pfinztal region of southern Germany. The best results were achieved using the element ruthenium as a catalyser at temperatures between 150 and 250 degrees Celsius. FNR, based in Guelzow, said the technology might offer a new and steady-priced market to growers of sugar beet, who suffered a blow Thursday with European Union reforms to the sugar industry. It said the next step would be to build a pilot plant. Testing would continue with other carbohydrates such as starch and cellulose which had so far failed to produce the desired quality in the reactor. --SP 2248 Local Time 1948 GMT
