Corn processing is an American invention that continues to find new uses which benefit consumers around the world. Today, the typical grocery store offers almost 4,000 products with corn ingredients on the label. In the last 100 years, just a few of the new uses discovered for corn and corn-based products have included:
- Fuel alcohol (ethanol)
- Penicillin production
- Instant food and beverage mixes
- Recycled paper
- Intravenous solutions
- Soft drinks
Some of the new uses being commercialized today include:
Tires. Tire manufacturers began using corn starch decades ago to dust the molds in which tires are made. Now a tire company has produced a new line of tires that uses micro-droplets of corn starch as a tire ingredient to reduce tire weight and rolling resistance. The new tires require less energy to produce and their lower rolling resistance is expected to reduce fuel consumption and noise.
Plastics and textiles. Corn-based polylactic acid (PLA) is being used to replace oil-based ingredients in a wide variety of plastic and textile products. This helps solve the world's growing waste-disposal problems, because PLA is a renewable, biodegradable resource. For fabrics, PLA can be made into fibers for woven and non-woven fabrics. It can be blended with cotton, wool, and silk.
Some PLA-based plastics and textiles include:
- Bedding
- Film wrap for tapes and CDs
- Carpeting
- Foam packaging
- Clothing
- Fresh food packaging
- Cord and rope
- Mattresses
- Cups
- Serving utensils
Industrial chemicals, solvents, and organic acids. Corn processors have known for decades that many industrial chemicals and organic acids can be made from a renewable resource such as corn, rather than from non-renewable raw materials. Ongoing research today is aimed at solving the challenge of making corn-based chemicals economically competitive. By the end of this century, the U.S. National Research Council predicts that more than 90% of U.S. organic chemicals will be made from renewable resources.
Information compiled from various sources,
including the National Corn Growers Association, Cargill Dow Polymer
and the Corn Refiners Association.