Biofuel can be produced from the raw material of tequila

Anyone who has ever thrown back a shot of tequila may not be surprised to learn that researchers at Old Dominion University are using the “T- word” these days in reference to high-octane alternative fuels.

That doesn't mean that ODU geochemist Patrick Hatcher and his team of researchers, who form the nucleus of the Virginia Coastal Energy Research Consortium (VCERC), are turning actual tequila into fuels.

They are interested, however, in the blue agave plant, which contributes the sweet juice that is the raw product in tequila production.

You see, when the blue agave is harvested, only the bulbous heart of the plant is taken to the distillery to be cooked down into a useable liquid. The 3-to-6-foot spike-like leaves of the desert plant are hacked off and often discarded. Those leaves are the biomass that Hatcher has his eyes on now after years of focusing almost exclusively on algae as a biomass source.