In Oman, researchers from Sultan Qaboos University have successfully transformed waste paper including waste office paper, newspaper and cardboard paper into fermentable sugars by enzymatic hydrolysis that was later turned into ethanol and bioplastics as well as biodiesel. Paper waste represents more than 35% of the sultanate’s 1.6 million metric tons of MSW produced on […]
In Ohio, most people are cautious around gasoline and diesel for good reason, but some microbes love the stuff—especially biofuels that contain fatty acid derivatives. So, as the world tries to go “green,” it also has to consider the slime that such microbes leave behind, clogging up equipment and killing engines. An article in Chemical […]
In Missouri, researchers from Donald Danforth Plant Science Center studied the earliest stages the evolution of male and female sexes in a group of freshwater photosynthetic protists called volvocine green algae, which could have implications for breeding algae for biofuel applications. James Umen, Ph.D., a member of the Enterprise Rent-a-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels and […]
In Washington, a study from the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University found that action to cap Renewable Identification Number (RIN) prices in exchange for an RVP waiver allowing year-round sale of E15 would result in reduced ethanol consumption, a drop in corn prices, and an effective cut of 5% to […]
In Colorado, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is seeking respondents to a survey to better understand the next generation biofuel industry as a whole and its contributions to the local and national economy. The survey is being conducted by Yimin Zhang (NREL) and Marshall Goldberg (MRG & Associates), a subcontractor for NREL, and individual responses […]
In Ireland, researchers from the University of Limerick have modified nanoporous gold electrodes using lactate oxidase and bilirubin oxidase to create a flexible enzymatic biofuel cell (FEBC) that could provide autonomous power supply for wearable electronic devices. The research used commercially available contact lenses to embed the FEBC and tested the device with both artificial […]
In Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin at Madison researchers are focusing on a class of reactions that break down biomass by dissolving it in a mixture of water, a cosolvent and an acid catalyst. By modeling how tens of thousands of atoms move and interact with each other, they showed that the cosolvent speeds up the […]
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
In Washington, D.C., researchers with the BioEnergy Science Center (BESC) genetically modified switchgrass to produce less lignin to improve ethanol conversion and found that the long-term effects of the modified lignin had no negative impacts on the soil. The study looked at the impact on soil over two to five years and concluded that there […]
In Alabama, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has selected Southern Research for an award of up to $5.9 million to advance production of high-performance, low-cost carbon fibers from biomass. The DOE award will fund development of a multi-step catalytic process for conversion of sugars from non-food biomass to acrylonitrile – a key precursor in […]
