In California, an algae research project conducted by the University of California and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography has utilized a harvest system which processes up to 9000 gallons of algae-laden water per minute at a 95% capture rate, yielding up to 20% algae concentrations. The project utilizes World Water Works’ Algae Harvesting Technology Optimized […]
In France, Carbios, a green chemistry company that specializes in innovative biological and industrial processes for recovering plastic waste and is developing competitive production processes for biosourced plastics and biopolymers, today announced the signature of a pivotal €7-million collaboration with the French National Institute for Agricultural Research at the Toulouse White Biotechnology research center. The […]
In New Mexico, Sandia National Laboratories is developing a suite of complementary technologies to help the emerging algae industry detect and quickly recover from algal pond crashes, an obstacle to large-scale algae cultivation for future biofuels. Because of the way algae is grown and produced in most algal ponds, they are prone to attack by […]
In Louisiana, scientists at the University of Bristol in the U.K. reported a discovery that could speed an emerging effort to replace ethanol in gasoline with a substantially better fuel additive called butanol, which some experts regard as “the gasoline of the future.” Their report on this discovery, which holds potential to reduce the costs […]
In California, researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory through support from the Energy Biosciences Institute have literally shed new light on cellulase catalysis by using an ultrahigh-precision visible light microscopy technique called PALM – for Photo-Activated Localization Microscopy. Researchers have found a way to improve the collective catalytic activity of enzyme cocktails that can […]
In Louisiana, enzymes from fungi from the feces and intestinal tracts of horses have been discovered to break down lignin and produce cellulose effectively, and could hold the key to cutting down costs on cellulosic processes. The University of California Santa Barbara team of researchers is trying to identify the most active enzyme and working […]
In Germany, INOCAS launched “Insights into Jatropha Projects Worldwide” based on a global survey of 111 managers of Jatropha cultivation projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The survey showed low profits as the main problem of many Jatropha projects, caused by insufficient seed yields. More than half (58 %) of all projects work exclusively or partly […]
In California, taking an approach similar to that used for discovering new therapeutic drugs, chemists at the University of California, Davis, have found several compounds that can boost oil production by green microscopic algae. They screened 83 compounds for their effects on growth and oil production in four strains of microalgae. They identified several that […]
In Virginia, researchers at Virginia Tech have made a major breakthrough by using xylose to produce a large quantity of hydrogen that previously was only theoretically possible. The method can be applied to any kind of biomass to produce hydrogen, a process which could find its way to the market in as quick as three […]
In Brazil, researchers at the University of Sao Paulo and the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation have found that the efficient use of nitrogen fertilizers can have a major impact on the GHG emissions of biofuel feedstocks. Research saw different impacts on nitrous oxide emissions depending on whether urea or ammonium nitrate was used, while emissions […]
