In Massachusetts, Lux Research is reporting that innovative pricing and service models will be key to the success of sensor applications in agriculture. “With farmers facing price variability and other uncertainties,” said Lux, “ few are able or willing to risk significant capital on sensing technologies, which can help make more efficient use of soil, […]
In India, Chempolis has partnered Avantha Group’s research wing ACRID to produce cellulosic ethanol and other bio-based chemicals from feedstocks such as bagasse, cane trash, rice and wheat straw, corn stems, grasses, bamboo and clean sugar. Chempolis will supply its proprietary technology for the implementation of local projects. An increase of ethanol production is expected to […]
In Canada, researchers from McGill University have devised a strategy where seafood waste is pretreated by enzymatic hydrolysis for subsequent hydrothermal carbonization to produce hydrochar and biocrude liquor. Enzyme hydrolysis conditions including enzyme concentration, incubation time, and enzyme ratios were carefully optimized for maximal hydrolysis of seafood waste. By using an enzyme cocktail of Viscozyme, […]
In Washington, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) announced its intent to issue, on behalf of the Bioenergy Technologies Office, a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) entitled “Advancements in Algal Biomass Yield, Phase 2 (ABY2).” This FOA will support projects to develop technologies that are likely to succeed in […]
In Washington state, Washington State University researchers have developed a catalyst that easily converts bio-based ethanol to a widely used industrial chemical, paving the way for more environmentally friendly, bio-based plastics and products. The researchers have published a paper online describing the catalyst in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.5b07401) and have been […]
BCC Research has released Global Markets and Technologies for Biofuel Enzymes, which forecasts a five-year compound annual growth rate of 10.4% from 2015-2020, leading to a global market size of $1 billion in the end year. The report explores present and future strategies within the biofuel enzymes market, which includes amylase, cellulose, xylanase, lipase and […]
In Texas, Wayne Versaw, Associate Professor at Texas A&M University in College Station is the lead researcher in a $1.2 million grant from the Department of Energy to support the development of biosensors to track and measure the movement of phosphate from soil fungi into plant cells in real time. The biosensor system will provide […]
In Massachusetts, University of Massachusetts Amherst computational chemist Scott Auerbach has been awarded a three-year, $330,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to improve basic understanding and optimize the process of producing fuels such as gasoline from plant biomass instead of from petroleum. For more than 50 years, Auerbach explains, chemists and chemical engineers have […]
In Illinois, the University of Illinois has estimates from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), indicate that U.S. production of fuel ethanol totaled 14.313 billion gallons during the 2014 calendar year. That is 1.02 billion gallons more than produced in 2013 and about 384 million gallons more than the previous record production in 2011. For […]
In California, the state has not taken full advantage of opportunities to increase its in-state production of biofuel, despite state policies that encourage biofuel consumption, according to a report by the Climate Change and Business Research Initiative at the UCLA and UC Berkeley law schools. Coming on the heels of new Environmental Protection Agency rules […]
