Abandoned Christmas trees could be saved from the landfill and turned into paint and food sweeteners according to new research by the University of Sheffield. Christmas trees have hundreds of thousands of pine needles which take a long time to decompose compared to other tree leaves. When they rot, they emit huge quantities of greenhouse gases which then contribute to the carbon footprint of the UK. Cynthia Kartey, a Ph.D. student from the University of Sheffield's Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, has found that useful products can be made from the chemicals extracted from pine needles when processed. The major component (up to 85 percent) of pine needles is a complex polymer known as lignocellulose.
The complexity of this polymer makes using pine needles as a product for biomass energy unattractive and useless to most industrial processes. Cynthia said: "My research has been focused on the breakdown of this complex structure into simple, high-valued industrial chemical feedstocks such as sugars and phenolics, which are used in products like household cleaners and mouthwash. "Biorefineries would be able to use a relatively simple but unexplored process to break down the pine needles." With the aid of heat and solvents such as glycerol, which is cheap and environmentally friendly, the chemical structure of pine needles is broken down into a liquid product (bio-oil) and a solid by-product (biochar).