In California, a team of researchers from Belgium and the U.S. has identified the active site of an iron-containing catalyst that has raised hopes for designing a practically useful catalyst that might make converting methane to methanol a possibility. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the researchers describe their efforts, what they discovered […]
In Nigeria, the Petroleum Technology Development fund will set up a national coordination center for biofuel R&D at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic studies in Kaduna and has called on the national petroleum industry to provide support and funding to getting biofuel production to commercial scale in the country. One of the fund’s […]
In California, so far industry has only harnessed a fraction of the diversity available for biotechnological applications, including biofuel production. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by DOE Joint Genome Institute researchers aims to help boost the use of a wider range of yeasts. To help boost the use […]
In North Dakota, North Dakota ethanol producer Red Trail Energy, and the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) have been awarded $490,000 by the North Dakota Industrial Commission’s Renewable Energy Program in support of a study examining the integration of carbon capture and storage (CCS) at RTE’s ethanol manufacturing facility near Richardton to reduce the […]
In Missouri, engineers at Washington University have found a new way to boost biofuel production in E. coli bacteria by altering its protein structure. Fuzhong Zhang, assistant professor in the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering, along with researchers in his lab, reported in the journal Metabolic Engineering that they have discovered a new method […]
In California, a US Navy research team at China Lake led by Ben Harvey reported that 2,3-Butanediol, which has received a significant amount of interest based on the ability to generate it at much higher titer than n-butanol owing tothe relatively low toxicity of 2,3-BD to the producing organism, “can be converted to butenes over bifunctional […]
In France, in order to prevent the air-fuel mixture in the gasoline engine from self-igniting prematurely, additives are included with the fuel to increase the knock resistance. In a project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) the French-German company Global Bioenergies now aims to produce two such additives, isooctane and […]
In Missouri, a team from the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a way to make the production of certain biofuels in E. coli much more efficient. Fuzhong Zhang, assistant professor in the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering, along with researchers in his lab, have discovered […]
In the UK, the Valor Plus project is providing new knowledge, new biotechnologies and new products that support the release, refinement and transformation of lignocellulosic biomass, lipids and low-volume functional chemicals to produce multiple bulk and high-value product streams. With funding from the EU FP7 program, the Valor Plus project consists of a strong consortium of […]
In Florida, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researchers have found that sweet potato vines, usually thrown out during harvest, can serve well as livestock feed while the roots are an ideal source for biofuel. This could be a key finding for the agriculture industry in Florida and to biofuel needs worldwide. According […]
