Now growing at the University of Louisville: Hemp

The University of Louisville’s Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research has started growing industrial hemp in an effort to spur its fuels and manufacturing research.

Article by Kevin Modelski

According to a press release, U of L researchers have partnered with the Kentucky Department of Agriculture and the University of Kentucky’sAgriculture Department for the project. At U of L, the researchers have planted hemp in a 40-by-40-foot plot nearby the Conn Center offices by the Phoenix House. The surrounding plots will be planted with kenaf and switchgrass, which are two other plants with comparable fuel potentials to hemp.

Industrial hemp has none of the chemicals that produce a high for its users, unlike the plant’s relative, marijuana. However, hemp does contain dense fibers that are valuable in some manufacturing applications. The plant also has a woody core that could be used as a replacement for fossil fuels once it’s compressed.

“Hemp is cleaner and cheaper to produce than coal, oil or other resources,” Mahendra Sunkara, a professor chemical engineering and director of the Conn Center, said in the release. “It could solve many of the nation’s future energy needs while providing a new, lucrative cash crop for Kentucky farmers.”

Research for the project will be led by Jagannadh Satyavolu, a biofuels theme leader at the Conn Center; Noppodon Sathitsuksanoh, an assistant professor of chemical engineering; and Eric Berson, an associate professor of chemical engineering.

U of L is the only one of the eight Kentucky universities conducting research on hemp that also is focused on using the plant as a fuel resource.

The Conn Center, which has been on U of L’s Belknap campus since 2009, also will use the hemp crop to educate the community and public on the benefits of industrial hemp.

“We want to eliminate the stigma that is attached to hemp,” Andrew Marsh, the Conn Center’s assistant director, said in the release. “When people learn the characteristics of the crop and understand its potential for economic development, we think they will become advocates for its production.”

The Conn Center also tackles research in the solar energy conversion, biofuels and energy conservation fields.

In 2014, researchers at the University of Kentucky harvested the state’s first legal crop of hemp in 70 years.

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