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Watermelons are not just a favorite summer treat, – according to new research ^[4] by the US Department of Agriculture ^[5], they may soon fuel our cars ^[6]. Research reveals that watermelon juice has a relatively high concentration of directly fermentable sugars, which may be a valuable source for biofuel due to the ease with which they can be fermented into ethanol ^[7]. But don’t worry about your favorite corn field being plowed under to make way for a new cash crop – researchers say there are enough wasted watermelons out there to use as biofuel feedstock.

The recent development was revealed by the USDA South Central Agricultural Research Laboratory ^[4] in Lane, OK, which has been looking to watermelons to determine if their juice was a viable feedstock for biofuels ^[8]. Not only did they determine it was, but they also determined that enough feedstock could be created from leftover watermelons already being grown. “About 20% of each annual watermelon crop is left in the field because of surface blemishes or because they are misshapen; currently these are lost to growers as a source of revenue.” So farmers could begin to sell their blemished watermelons for biofuels and create a new revenue stream rather then plow them back into the field.

Watermelons are also high in certain nutraceuticals – lycopene ^[9] and L-citrulline ^[10], which are important nutrients for humans. If production of these nutraceuticals from watermelons increased, it would yield a waste stream of watermelon juice at the rate of over 500 L/t of watermelons. Since watermelon juice contains 7 to 10% (w/v) directly fermentable sugars and 15 to 35 umol/ml of free amino acids, it has great potential to produce biofuel.

Via Ecofabulous ^[11] and Universe Today ^[12]

Lead image by ~Rungue ^[13]