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Visitors to the Statue of Liberty may not know it, but the monument's elevator now runs on a new, biodegradable hydraulic fluid made from soy oil.
Until recently, Lady Liberty's elevator used mineral oil formulations derived from petroleum-based stocks. But the National Park Service (NPS), which manages both Liberty and Ellis Island, has decided to "go green," using products made from renewable sources that are less polluting. In February 2002, NPS building and utilities foreman Jeff Marrazzo contacted ARS chemist Sevim Erhan about the feasibility of developing a biobased fluid for use in the statue's elevator.
Erhan, at ARS's National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research (NCAUR), Peoria, Illinois, recalls Marrazzo's specifications for such a product: It had to readily break down in the environment in case of a leak; it had to come from a renewable resource; the process for making the biofluid had to be economical and nonpolluting; and it had to...