Author Archive: Jim Lane

The Digest’s 2024 Multi-Slide Guide to conversion of plastic-derived intermediates to new monomers

September 25, 2024 | Jim Lane

The Bio-Optimized Technologies to keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment (BOTTLE) consortium is developing new chemical upcycling strategies for today’s plastics and redesigning tomorrow’s plastics to be recyclable-by-design. BOTTLE conducts high-impact research and development to deliver scalable technologies that enable cost-effective recycling, upcycling, and increased energy efficiency for plastics. Under the BOTTLE research […]

The Digest’s 2024 Multi-Slide Guide to Plastic Deconstruction and Chemical Catalysis

September 24, 2024 | Jim Lane

Deconstruction is a major effort in the BOTTLE consortium; work spans exploratory catalysis (”fail fast”) to advancing promising approaches towards scale-up. In this BOTTLE project, the team looked at Chemical catalysis for C–C bond cleavage in mixed plastics waste for open-loop recycling and Chemical catalysis for PET and nylon deconstruction and closed loop recycling, while […]

The Digest’s 2024 Multi-Slide Guide to Methanol a Versatile Chemical and Fuel

September 23, 2024 | Jim Lane

The most recent Digest webinar looked into the promise and progress with renewable methanol as a chemical intermediate and as a renewable fuel. Muhammed Islam of S&B Engineers and Constructors took us through this presentation, which looked at conversion routes, feedstock sources, the role of syngas, applications, levelized costs and available tax credits.

50 Hottest Companies in the Bioeconomy, 2024-25, nominations open

September 23, 2024 | Jim Lane

In Florida, The Digest announced the official opening of nominations for the 50 Hottest Companies in the Bioeconomy for 2024-25. Voting Rules Voting will be open to all registered voters, and you can register here. As a courtesy, ABLC delegates are automatically registered as voters. Nominations Hot 50 nominations will begin Tuesday, September 24th 2024 and […]

SAFiji: Fiji Sugar, Fiji Air, ADB and LEC launch study of the how and when of South Pacific SAF

September 20, 2024 | Jim Lane

News arrives from Fiji today, so a hearty Bula to everyone. I first visited the islands in 1974 as a young boy, and have wandered the low hills and the sugarcane fields from time to time, since. This hard-working people are challenged by changijng times, yet good news is in the offing. Fiji Airways, Fiji […]

The Digest’s 2024 Multi-Slide Guide to Catalytic Upgrading of Carbohydrates in Waste Streams to Hydrocarbons

September 19, 2024 | Jim Lane

Paper sludge typically taken to landfills (50%), incinerated (20%) or spread on land as soil enhancement (10%). In total, there’s 8 million wet tonnes (4MT dry) of paper sludge that costs $240 million each year to truck and landfill. In this project , researchers propose to develop a technology for converting the carbohydrates in paper […]

The Principles of Low-Carbon Tectonics: As Lygos, Pyran accelerate, we look at the why, the where, and the when

September 19, 2024 | Jim Lane

The pace of commercialization in the world of renewable chemicals is not often compared to the Jump to Light Speed. Nor does a hot and harried scamper across the Valley of Death come to mind. Actually, it feels like more like the push of the Indian subcontinental plate against the Asian continental mass, slow, disrupted […]

The Digest’s 2024 Multi-Slide Guide to Biomethanation to Upgrade Biogas to Pipeline Grade Methane

September 18, 2024 | Jim Lane

Renewable natural gas (RNG) is typically produced from biogas using gas separation technology – keeping the CH4 – venting the CO2. Upgrading CO2 present in biogas using naturally-occurring organisms can increase production 60 – 70%. In this project, researchers aimed to develop, innovate, reduce costs and de-risk the biomethanation process to upgrade biogas sources to […]

Comstock, cellulosic fuels go Big Hoss in the Ponderosa (and Australia too) with $325M deal, 300Mgy in projects

September 18, 2024 | Jim Lane

As Bonanza episodes go, this is one storyline we need to frame around Big Hoss, not Little Joe. So, get ready for it Comstock Fuels has landed $325M in capital and announced that it is underway on three biorefinery projects with 300 million gallons of fuel. In all, more than one million tonnes of feedstock […]

The Digest’s 2024 Multi-Slide Guide to Maximizing Bio-Renewable Energy from Wet Wastes

September 17, 2024 | Jim Lane

Most current wastewater plants recover <33% of incoming energy & have a negative energy balance. So, there’s an opportunity to increase net energy yield from municipal wastewater treatment. Yet, Anaerobic membrane bioreactors (AnMBRs) facilitate mainstream anaerobic digestion but previous AnMBRs suffer from high costs and energy inputs. A research team proposed a project to resolve […]

Free Subscription

The Biofuels Digest newsletter

The most widely-read biofuels daily — 20,000+ organizations subscribe — why not you too?