A process used in breweries and wastewater treatment facilities could make corn ethanol more energy efficient.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are exploring the use of oxygen-less vats of microorganisms that naturally feed on organic waste produced from the ethanol fermentation process.

According to a university release, a WUSTL team has tested anaerobic digestion on waste from ethanol plants and found that the process could cut down an ethanol facility’s use of natural gas by 50 percent. They published the results in the recent issue of the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

A complete story on the research is available at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Technology Review.