In Alabama, Auburn University researchers are leading a $2 million U.S. Department of Energy project that promises to improve fuel efficiency and economy. The project will create a bio-based fuel additive that can be blended with diesel fuel to reduce soot and greenhouse gas emissions and yield cleaner engine operation in cold-weather conditions. Joining as […]
In Israel, nominated by the Council of Finnish Academies, Senior Vice President of Technology at Neste, Dr. Lars Peter Lindfors and his team have been awarded with the Eric and Sheila Samson Prime Minister’s Prize for Innovation in Alternative Fuels for Transportation. This is a globally highly recognized prize for innovation in the field. The […]
In Colorado, though algal biofuels are a more sustainable alternative to fossil fuels, there remains room to improve the production of the algae used to create them. Researchers at Colorado State University are leading a $2.1 million project that aims to increase algae yield by improving carbon dioxide utilization. The three-year project is part of […]
In Australia, University of Queensland researchers have stabilized biocatalyst enzymes that used to fall apart outside the body and at high temperatures so that they don’t do that anymore, which can be useful for carrying out chemical transformations under industrial conditions, such as producing biofuels. They made more heat tolerant and stronger versions of two […]
In Alaska, microbes in the gastrointestinal tract of ruminants such as moose help break down recalcitrant plant biomass into carbon nutrients, but how do they do this over the course of seasons when the moose diet changes, and what microbes are involved? Now, an international research team has studied microbial communities in the rumen of […]
In the UK, dissolving seaweed sauce sachets and technology inspired by a suckerfish to remove plastics from rivers are among 11 innovative projects to win the backing of a GBP4 million government fund to clean up the environment. To showcase the ground-breaking research being led by UK scientists and innovators during Green GB & NI […]
In California, Greencar Congress reports that researchers from JBEI along with Chinese colleagues have produced three promising aviation jet fuel feedstocks whose results were recently published in open-access journal Biotechnology for Biofuels. Researchers undertook computational analysis looking at three sesquiterpenes—epi-isozizaene, pentalenene and α-isocomene—and found they were comparable to commercial fossil-based jet fuel. They were then […]
In Ireland, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed TD launched the new EUR22.2 million BEACON Bioeconomy SFI Research Center at the EUR5.75 million National Bioeconomy Campus in Lisheen, Co. Tipperary. The event also saw the launch of the Irish Bioeconomy Foundation (IBF), as part of the inaugural Bioeconomy Ireland Day, which aims […]
In Wisconsin, a study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center compared two processes for producing biofuels from corn stover: biological conversion to ethanol (BCE) and catalytic conversion to alkenes (CCA) and found that carbon efficiency isn’t the only factor for determining promising strategies for the production of […]
In China, through careful genetic analysis of a large, diverse panel of sorghum varieties, scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered the gene controlling the stem juiciness trait in sorghum, as described in this month’s issue of the Plant Cell. The dry gene product appears to function as a master switch that controls the […]
