Glucose, nature’s most abundant sugar, may soon be petroleum’s fiercest rival. Chemists have long searched for cheap, renewable, and non-polluting alternatives to the 245 million tonnes of petroleum- based plastics produced annually. For years, they have been able to convert sugars into the chemical hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), which can be used to make plastic. But the process, which used acid catalysts to break the sugars down, was costly and complicated by impurities and low yields. Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNLL) in Washington replaced the acid catalyst with a metal catalyst, chromium chloride, and used it to break down glucose, a sugar found in plant starches and cellulose. The result: HMF yields increased 10 to 70 percent over the old processes and impurities were eliminated. The next step to replacing petroleum is to find a low-impact renewable source for the glucose. Scientists hope to soon obtain glucose from cellulose rather than from plant starches. Cellulose is found in straw and sawdust, two waste products from the agricultural and wood industries that do not require precious farmland to be taken away from food crops.