In India, researchers from the National Chemical Laboratory have developed a new zeolite catalyst that can speed up the production of furfural from agricultural waste biomass without having to pass through traditional intermediate steps that are time consuming and costly. Ethyl levulinate which is produced from furfural is a key product of biorefineries, so finding […]
In Wisconsin, researchers at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, recently published a paper in the journal mSystems in which they analyzed the makeup and metabolic activity of a mixed microbial community within a bioreactor. By doing so, they’re edging closer toward engineering such a community to optimally generate particular products—an outcome that would boost […]
In Michigan, yeasts are complex organisms that may become the workhorses of biofuel production. To move yeasts into this larger role, scientists need to understand the genetic machinery that leads to the production of complex molecules like the iron-binding molecule pulcherrimin in budding yeasts. Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center scientists revealed a four-gene cluster associated […]
In Tennessee, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are studying approaches to cleaner energy conversion of biomass. Using neutron scattering at ORNL, they are investigating how biomasses degrade as they are exposed to extreme temperatures. Insights from their experiments could also point to possible applications for the byproducts of bioenergy production. “A […]
In Denmark, a new EU-funded project, SinFonia, will come up with a more sustainable alternative to the current production of fluorinated products by engineering the robust bacterium Pseudomonas putida as a cell factory to make fluorinated polymers. The project aims at producing fluorinated compounds in bacteria with metabolic engineering, circumventing the chemical reactions. Using the […]
In Colorado, Researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) have identified an approach to improve the efficiency and reduce costs of biofuel production that moves beyond conventional strategies. A culmination of years of catalyst development research, “Driving towards cost-competitive biofuels through catalytic fast pyrolysis […]
In Japan, researchers at the at the Green Science Alliance found a solution for breaking down cellulose into glucose in an efficient way. Using this technology, they will produce bioethanol at an industrial level. They will also attempt to create a wood-alcohol-based drink. This will be the first instance of wood alcohol production at an […]
In the Netherlands, University of Groningen scientists think they have figured out why some yeast cells produce ethanol: yeast cells produce ethanol as a ‘safety valve’ to prevent overload when their metabolic operation reaches a critical level. The new theory, which was published in Nature Metabolism on 7 January, could have far-reaching implications, as it […]
In Washington, scientists are more rapidly designing peptides for industrial and medical applications, such as catalysts for biofuels, through a complex computational model and real-time testing with the award-winning SLIM ion analysis technology. What used to be a slow process has been sped up thanks to a team of scientists who blended complex calculations with […]
In China, research team led by the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has discovered two novel diacylglyceryl transferases (DGAT2s) that preferentially attach linoleic acid (LA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), respectively, to the glycerol backbone to form triacylglycerol from algae. By modulating the ratio of these specialist enzymes […]
