Developing efficient and economical biological and chemical technologies to convert biomass feedstocks into energy-dense liquid transportation fuels, such as renewable gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, as well as bioproducts, chemical intermediates, and biopower is the primary goal of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Conversion R&D team. As part of the 2019 BETO Peer Review, Program […]
CO2 is one of those things you love to hate, but it’s there and it’s not going away, so if we don’t find a way to use it, isn’t it a missed opportunity? As part of the 2019 BETO Peer Review, Ian Rowe from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office gave this illuminating […]
PACE – Producing Algae for Coproducts and Energy, has several project goals including increasing algal biomass productivity to >25 grams dry weight per meter squared per day using robust engineered algal strains to reduce costs. So how do we get these high value, high market algal coproducts? Matthew Posewitz from the Colorado School of Mines […]
Noone knows fungus like these guys. A PNNL team has been developing fungal genetic engineering tools for industrially relevant fungi (filamentous and yeasts) and applying them to development of biofuel and bioproduct bioprocesses in stirred tank reactors. Jon Magnuson from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory gave this illuminating overview of PNNL’s work to engineer a Lipomyces […]
Petroleum based lubricants are everywhere, but Cargill is working on producing lubricants from cellulosic sugars instead. Utilizing a novel bioprocess that converts lignocellulosic hydrolysate sugars to caprylatemethyl ester, they are laying the foundation for this product to be used more extensively in current applications and open the market for new applications. Tom McMullin from Cargill […]
Camelina is one of those fascinating feedstocks but often the yields aren’t high enough to be profitable for farmers. That’s a problem Kristi Snell from Yield10 Bioscience is tackling by developing a camelina feedstock with significantly increased seed yield and/or seed oil content to maximize oil yields per acre using a genome editing technology as […]
Global Algae Innovations is working on a trifecta of goals: 1) to develop improved strains and cultivation methods to increase the algal biofuel intermediate yield by at least 70% AND 2) to develop new drying and extraction technology to reduce the energy for downstream processing by at least 50% AND 3) to work in an […]
Shawn Jones from White Dog Labs shared this as part of the of U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office presentations on second-generation mixotrophy for the highest yield and least expensive biochemical production. Check out The Digest’s slides on how this project is working on developing and demonstrating a fermentation process to produce acetone from […]
Versalis, a wholly owned subsidiary of Eni, and while their history lies with traditional chemicals, they now have strategic guidelines for chemistry from renewables. Their biotech business unit is one of the ways they are integrating renewable chemicals into products like biofuels, biochemicals, bioherbicides, cosmetic products, intermediates for bioplastic and biofibers, and more. Dario Giordano, […]
What you smell like and what you eat – two pretty important things for many people. The first could mean the difference between a first date and a second date, and the second could mean the difference between the first bite and a second bite. Scott Chaplin from SCMC Consulting, gave this illuminating overview of […]
