In Wisconsin, advanced biofuels pioneer Virent Systems, which has a joint R&D agreement with Royal Dutch Shell to produce biogasoline from plant sugars using catalysts and the Aqueous Phase Reforming process, has ramped up its research and analytical laboratory activities and promoted Mary Tilton to Vice President overseeing the expanded lab operations. Virent was recently named to the Red Herring 100 as one of the top startup companies for 2008.
The Shell-Virent collaboration is focusing on scaling the technology for larger volume commercial production. Virent’s technology uses sugars from non-food sources like corn stover, switch grass, wheat straw and sugarcane pulp, in addition to conventional biofuel feedstock like wheat, corn and sugarcane, and can be blended seamlessly to make conventional gasoline or combined with gasoline containing ethanol.
From Biofuels Digest correspondent Bob Brooks, member SAE
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