New detergent is made from sugar a new detergent made from sugar is now testing the industrial market in the south of england. tate and lyle, scientists who devised the new product, believe that it may be the forerunner of a whole new chemical industry based on sugar rather than oil or coal. the production of the detergent, which has been patented in 30 countries, is very simple. sugar is reacted directly with tallow - a product made from animal fats - at the right temperature and with a catalyst, to produce a brown solid. there are no by-products of the reaction, so no need for expensive separation. because sugar is a minor component in the reaction and tallow is a low-cost product, tate and lyle believe that the new detergent can compete on price with conventional ones. tate and lyle have also produced from sugar a range of chemicals which are being tested for pharmaceutical activity, and a sugar-based polyurethane foam similar in properties to conventional foam but fire-resistant. they believe that the scope for a sugar-based chemical industry is enormous and will have the advantage of being based on a renewable resources rather than on declining stocks of oil. it's interesting to know when were pennies first used in britain? it was about ad 765 that offa, king of mercia, introduced the penny into england. pennies were the only coins in use in britain for the next 500 years. there were a few halfpennies too, obtained by cutting the penny in half. they really were half pennies! pennies then were made of silver and after a while looked very worn and battered as people used to chip little bits off the edges, melt them down and make a small lump of silver which they could sell. you may have heard of pieces-of-eight - the pirates' gold -but there are many coins, like the groat or the noble, which might sound strange to us now. it seems surprising to think that there was once a quarter-farthing. the gold noble struck in the royal (or noble) metal, depicted edward iii standing in a ship. it is thought that this design commemorated the naval battle of sluys. since ancient greek and roman times coins were struck to commemorate important people, events or even buildings, like the roman colosseum. some modern examples are the crown-piece struck in 1951 to mark the festival of britain, and another in 1953 when queen elizabeth was crowned, showing the queen on horseback. the particular design, the kind of metal, give valuable information about why they were struck, the countries they came from, the kind of people who used the coins.