In Virginia, a researcher at the University of Virginia has said that as strategies for energy security, investment opportunities and energy policies prompt ever-growing production and consumption of biofuels like bioethanol and biodiesel, land and water that could otherwise be used for food production increasingly are used to produce crops for fuel. About 4 percent […]
In China, researchers from MIT looked at gaseous substrates that could be made available at low cost and sufficiently large scale for industrial fuel production using a new bioconversion scheme that effectively converts syngas, generated from gasification of coal, natural gas, or biomass, into lipids that can be used for biodiesel production. The integrated conversion […]
In Germany, UFOP says that despite record consumption of around 37 million tons of diesel fuel, in 2015, biodiesel sales fell by 0.165 million tons compared with 2014. The admixture proportion of biodiesel fell by 6.5 percent in 2014 to 5.8 percent, according to information provided by the German Federal Office for Economic Affairs and […]
In Tennessee, a small stand of poplar trees harvested from a University of Tennessee AgResearch Center is set to help scientists progress further down the path toward low-cost, high-quality biomass and a bioeconomy. Located on UT’s East Tennessee AgResearch Center in Blount County, the 10-acre plot of hybrid poplars was planted just over four years […]
In the UK, Scientists at the University of York are part of an international research team that has made a significant step forward in understanding the processes naturally occurring enzymes use to degrade microbe-resistant biomass, a key aim in the development of biofuels. The research is part of ongoing study of a recently discovered family of […]
In Iran, scientists at the Petroleum University of Technology in Ahwaz have developed a high-speed conversion that turns waste cooking oil into fuel using ultrasound and caustic soda. Details are reported in the International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology. The team has demonstrated that biodiesel can be quickly produced from waste cooking oil […]
In California, scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have shown for the first time that an enzyme can be tweaked to reduce lignin in plants. Their technique could help lower the cost of converting biomass into carbon-neutral fuels to power your car and other sustainably developed bio-products. They […]
In California, a consortium of nine national laboratories is holding the Agile Biomanufacturing Industry Listening Workshop on March 15, 2016 in Berkeley, California, to increase understanding of industry needs for synthetic biology technologies to make renewable fuels and chemicals. Register at this link*. DOE National laboratories have developed deep and unique capabilities to build powerful […]
In Mexico, researchers from the Autonomous University of Sinaloa developed a mathematical model to determine the optimal design of an algae-based biorefinery where flue gases from different industrial facilities are used as raw materials. The team developed a mixed integer non-linear programming (MINLP) model and applied it to a case study in Mexico. Their model […]
In Illinois, scientists are exploring how grasses, and switchgrass in particular, can enrich the nation’s biofuel supply, which is currently dominated by corn, a crop relatively easy to convert to biofuel but also in demand for food, livestock feed and industrial products. A team of national laboratory and university researchers led by the U.S. Department […]
