In California, a seemingly counterintuitive approach – converting one greenhouse gas, methane, into another, carbon dioxide – holds promise for returning the atmosphere to pre-industrial concentrations of methane, a powerful driver of global warming, says the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Stanford researchers have outlined a potential process for converting an extremely potent greenhouse […]
In Belgium, the European-funded COLHD (Commercial vehicles using Optimised Liquid biofuels and HVO Drivetrains) project was launched to develop an alternative fuels engine that’s more efficient than the standard diesel alternative. COLHD covers technology, infrastructure and removal of additional barriers. It focuses on the development of three powertrain technologies that use biogas (liquefied biomethane or […]
In New York state, researchers from Cornell University say engineered electroactive microbes borrowing an electron from solar or wind electricity and using the energy to break apart carbon dioxide molecules from the air can then take the carbon atoms to make biofuels, such as isobutanol or propanol. These synthetic or non-biological electrically engineered elements could […]
In Wisconsin, undergraduate researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Stout looked into creating a prototype of an algae collection system. Using a pump, the system would take in water from Lake Menomin. The water would go through an electro-coagulator that would create bubbles to push the algae to the top of a collection box. The algae […]
In Illinois, U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory recently released an updated version of an online computer model meant to help bioenergy developers preserve critical resources. The model, called Water Analysis Tool for Energy Resources or WATER, has users from more than 35 U.S. states and can be found here: https://water.es.anl.gov/. It provides an in-depth analysis of water consumption used in the […]
In India, in their attempts to find a low cost and eco-friendly process for production of biodiesel from biowaste, researchers at Shoolini University’s School of Biotechnology are working on biodiesel derived from a microalgae species, Chlorella pyrenoidosa utilizing dairy wastewater as natural feedstock for the algae. Shoolini University, Dean of Research & Development, Dr. Sourabh […]
In California, open-source RNA analysis platform has been successfully used on plant cells for the first time – a breakthrough that could herald a new era of fundamental research and bolster efforts to engineer more efficient food and biofuel crop plants. The technology, called Drop-seq, is a method for measuring the RNA present in individual […]
In Ireland, along the windy west coast of Ireland a biorefinery on wheels is turning grass into a series of different green products that could give farmers a more diversified source of income. In Ireland, where agriculture accounts for over a third of its emissions, the biorefinery is being trialed as a solution to improve […]
In Australia, Chemical Engineering Magazine reports that an international team of researchers led by RMIT University in Melbourne has developed a way to efficiently transform CO2 into solid carbon, making it easier to store and to remove from the atmosphere rather than in liquid or gaseous states. Using a liquid metal electrocatalyst, researchers were able […]
In Michigan, close genetic analysis of 480 blue mallee eucalyptus plants provides clues to modify cultivars for greater yield, whether for essential oils or jet fuel. In particular, Michigan State University researchers are studying terpenes, organic compounds found in the plant’s leaves. Terpenes enable certain species that produce them (mostly plants, but also some insects) […]
