A company in the U.S. achieved a major breakthrough by transforming agricultural waste into fuel for motor vehicles and other useful chemicals by treating the waste with compacted water heated to extremely high temperature.

The Renmatix Company in Georgia has come up with a startling discovery and is currently developing novel technology that can provide an alternative source for oil imports.

The technology is feasible and can have a good market provided Congress sets a quota for the consumption of the so-called cellulosic fuel, according to a report from the New York Times.

The process consists of placing hard wood inside a small pressurized chamber while the residual material is pumped into another pressurized vessel for a longer duration to release the remaining sugars. The sugar containing five carbon atoms is broken off and harvested.

A solid component of woody biomass called lignin remains and is burned to provide energy for the process.

Renmatix officials said the main objective is to complete an achievement that has several companies in recent years despite big government incentives.

It is the act of developing a technology using cellulosic biomass or wood chips, switch grass and the non-edible parts of crops.

The welcome news about this initiative is that the supply of cellulosic biomass is greater than the amount of corn available for making ethanol. It does not entail redirecting resources from food production processes.

Cellulose is composed mainly of sugar that can be fed to micro-organisms to make ethanol or be chemically processed into other fuels or chemical feed stocks.

"The cellulosic material is treated by water at very high pressure and temperature that the water is neither steam nor an ordinary liquid but a form known as supercritical," the New York Times mentioned.

Other companies use a mixture of steam, acid and enzymes to convert the woody waste into fuel. However, the enzymes are expensive than water, and the acid residue must be removed from the resulting product.

Renmatix utilizes pressurized water. When the water reaches the so-called supercritical phase, its pH level can be adjusted to turn it into an acid. When it is depressurized, it goes back to pure water with a neutral pH level.