Category: Research

PNNL invention partitions ethanol from gasoline to enable octane on demand; could lower emissions

May 24, 2020 | admin

In Washington, an onboard separation technology developed by U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers is the first to use chemistry—not a physical membrane—to separate ethanol-blended gasoline into high- and low-octane fuel components and could pave the way for increased fuel economy and lower greenhouse gas emissions as part of an octane-on-demand fuel-delivery […]

DTU researchers look at how isoprenoids in plants can be mitigated

May 21, 2020 | Meghan Sapp

In Denmark, you cannot see them with the naked eye, but most plants emit volatile gases – isoprenoids – into the atmosphere when they breathe and grow. Some plants emit close to nothing; others emit kilograms annually. Isoprenoids contribute immensely to the amounts of hydrocarbons released into the atmosphere, where they can be converted into […]

CABBI researchers develop quick way to evaluate microbes for renewable fuels

May 20, 2020 | Meghan Sapp

In Illinois, scientists engineering valuable microbes for renewable fuels and bioproducts have developed a fast, efficient way to identify the most promising varieties. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign developed a novel mass spectrometry-based screening technique to rapidly profile medium-chain fatty acids produced in yeast — part of a larger group of free […]

Lufthansa teams with Swiss researchers to boost SAF production from sunlight

May 19, 2020 | Meghan Sapp

In Germany, representatives of the Lufthansa Group and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) with its spin-offs Clime-works and Synhelion have signed a joint Letter of Intent for a possible cooperation. This should help to accelerate the market launch of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF). The researchers and engineers at ETH Zurich have developed […]

Germany researchers develop method to help bridge tech gap for ethanol fuel cells

May 18, 2020 | Meghan Sapp

In Germany, researchers at Dresden University recently crafted a novel freeze-thaw method capable of acquiring multi-scale structured noble metal aerogels as superior photoelectrocatalysts for electro-oxidation of ethanol, promoting their application for fuel cells. Their work has now been published as a cover story in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, titled “Freeze-Thaw-Promoted Fabrication of Clean and Hierarchically-Structured […]

New machine learning tool speeds up identification of most promising fuels

May 17, 2020 | admin

In Colorado, researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory developed a new machine-learning tool that has significantly speeded up calculating the thermodynamics of chemical reactions and is able to provide predictions that are used in development of detailed reaction mechanisms for combustion of biofuels. Developed as part of the Department of Energy’s Co-Optimization of Fuels […]

Clemson University make progress on developing heat-tolerant soybeans

May 14, 2020 | Meghan Sapp

In South Carolina, soybean is one of the top cash crops grown in South Carolina and some Clemson University researchers have helped discover an “important milestone” in developing heat-tolerant soybeans. A paper about their study, Comparative Lipidomic Analysis Reveals Heat Stress Responses of Two Soybean Genotypes Differing in Temperature Sensitivity, appears in the April 4 […]

University of Minnesota researchers make it possible to mutate a single gene at a time

May 13, 2020 | Meghan Sapp

In Minnesota, University of Minnesota researchers have now developed a tool that makes it possible to mutate a single gene at a time—opening the door not only to a better understanding of evolution, but also better ways to modify the genes of microbes to give them the ability to mass-produce molecules, such as biofuel-generating enzymes, […]

UK researchers develop cheap way to produce biofuel from Sargassum seaweed

May 12, 2020 | Meghan Sapp

In the UK, researchers have developed a cheap and simple way of creating biofuel and fertilizer from seaweed, whilst removing plastic from the oceans and cleaning up tourist beaches in the Caribbean and Central America. Partly fueled by fertilizers washing into the sea from farming in the Americas, the foul-smelling Sargassum seaweed devastates the tourism […]

TU/e-led consortium IDEALFUEL seeks to produce wood-based marine fuels

May 11, 2020 | Meghan Sapp

In the Netherlands, many ships use heavy fuel oils that contain large amounts of sulphur and nitrogen leading to the emission of greenhouse gases and other damaging substances. The TU/e-led consortium IDEALFUEL seeks to address this issue by developing new, efficient and low-cost methods to produce low-sulphur heavy fuel oils from wood-based non-food biomass. The […]

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