Dr. Abdou Lachgar
From waste to energy
Wake Forest chemists develop a new catalyst that makes turning waste into biodiesel cheaper and eco-friendly
By Will Ferguson Office of Communications and External RelationsFatty grease extracted from sewer waste may one day fuel your car and power your home.
Abdou Lachgar, a professor of chemistry, Marcus Wright, a chemistry lab manager at Wake Forest, and undergraduates Matt Rohlfing, Jim Lee and Nini Liu, recently developed a sugar-based compound that makes it cheaper and easier to turn low-quality fats and oils into affordable biodiesel. The results of their work will appear in an upcoming edition of the journal Bioresource Technology. The research was funded by the Biofuels Center of North Carolina.