In Michigan, a team of Michigan State University scientists has invented a new technology that increases the odds of helping algae-based biofuels cross that gap and come closer to reality. The current issue of Algal Research showcases the team’s invention — the environmental photobioreactor. The ePBR system is the world’s first standard algae growing platform, one […]
In France, researchers from the Laboratoire de Chimie-Physique at the Universite Paris-Sud have demonstrated the use of Streptomyces, a soil bacterium known for making antibiotics, for producing biofuels. The researchers used atomic force microscopy combined with infrared spectroscopy, a method that could be used by others to determine other microbes for biofuel production.
In the UK, Rothamsted Research scientists, who receive strategic funding from the BBSRC, have demonstrated that a by-product of the biodiesel industry shows potential to reduce nitrate leaching and so improve agricultural sustainability. The study is published at the journal Water Air and Soil Pollution. A criticism of biofuel production from oil crops is the […]
In Denmark, researchers from Southern Denmark University with colleagues from the University of Baghdad and Al-Muthanna University in Iraq have developed an acid called RHSO3H made on the basis of rice husks that help to produce second-generation ethanol without the need for expensive enzymes.
In Germany, UFOP determined that rapeseed oil is the most important raw material of the biodiesel component in diesel fuel, comprising 89% of the content based on investigation of the raw material composition of diesel fuel at public filling stations commissioned by UFOP. Palm kernel oil comprised 6% and palm and soya oil comprised 4 […]
In the UK, bright pink-orange microalgae found in salt lakes and coastal waters could become a renewable source of food, plastics, health products and fuel as a result of new research announced this week. The University of Greenwich is leading a EUR10 million international project to develop the microalga Dunaliella as a sustainable raw material that […]
In Virginia, researchers from Virginia Tech, Berkeley and other institutions have discovered that a process that turns on photosynthesis in plants likely developed on Earth in ancient microbes 2.5 billion years ago, long before oxygen became available. The research offers new perspective on evolutionary biology, microbiology, and the production of natural gas, and may shed […]
In Louisiana, farmers growing crops in Louisiana and Mississippi may soon have two new crops to add to their portfolios. Researchers with the LSU AgCenter, Mississippi State University Cooperative Extension Service and the United States Department of Agriculture are working together to bring sugarcane and sweet sorghum north – way north – of Interstate 10. The […]
In France, on February 13 2014, at a unique conference in Europe at the Ecole Centrale de Lille, Franck Dumeignil (CNRS), coordinator of the EuroBioRef project, revealed the results of this biorefinery of the future research programme. This General Assembly concluded four years of research that brought together 29 partners from 15 countries involved in […]
In California, seven patents covering water treatment, algae, and food-related areas have been released for sale by Allen and Peter Schuh. After oil has been extracted from jatropha, the press cakes remaining have previously not been usable as human and animal nutrition because of the toxins lectins and phorbol esters, both components in the fertilizers […]
