National Laboratory and at Washington State University have developed a new zinc and zirconium-based catalyst that will transform ethanol into isobutene in a single step. As the catalyst requires water, lower grade ethanols and hydrous ethanols can be used rather than the more expensive dehydrated varieties.
In Wisconsin, a Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center team has found new genes that improve yeast’s ability to process xylose. The team inserted genes into S. cerevisiae and found that one particular gene, CtAKR increased xylose consumption. As xylose can be nearly half the sugar available in a plant, any increase in yeast’s ability to […]
In California, Mary Solecki and Bob Epstein of E2 and David Richey of the Goldman School of Public Policy released a monumentally good read and one of the best primers available on advanced biofuels, with their Advanced Biofuel Market Report 2011: Meeting the California LCFS. t examines the market’s ability to meet the low-carbon fuel […]
In Brazil, UNICA reports that the volume of sugarcane processed by mills in the South-Central region of Brazil totaled 40.39 million tons in the first half of July, an increase of 2.34% compared to the same period a year ago. Total crushing from the beginning of the harvest to July 16 reached 217.40 million tons, […]
In Scotland, researchers in Aberdeen and Edinburgh are investigating if enzymes naturally found in cow’s stomachs can be synthesized on an industrial scale to create biofuels. The scientists are specifically looking at cattle’s ability to break down plants and trees in order to release energy. Life sciences company, Ingenza, the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen, and […]
In Texas, an energy return on investment study from researchers at The University of Texas at Austin found that using waste inputs to reduce growing costs can improve energy returns significantly, but algae growth strategies have not yet achieved high enough productivities to generate oils that can compete in fuel markets. “Under the conditions modeled […]
In New York, Elsevier launched Elsevier Biofuel, an online search tool that provides biofuel managers and research development professionals access to scientific, industrial, and commercial information. The platform allows users to search by keyword through millions of documents including past research, current studies, and methodologies to minimize waste in resources. The Elsevier Biofuel tool allows […]
In New Mexico, researchers with Los Alamos and Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center and others, have found that an ammonia pretreatment significantly reduced the tightness of the cellulose network and left it more vulnerable to conversion into sugar by fungi-derived cellulolytic enzymes.
In Brazil, researchers from Kansas State University, University of Texas at Austin and Michigan State University have statistically linked the loss of forest area as the indirect effect of changing pastureland into space for soybean and biofuel crops in counties bordering the Amazon. By reducing soybean production by 10 percent in these pasture areas could […]
In New York, researchers at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have been awarded funding to create out of many separate streams of biological information a single, integrated cyber-“knowledgebase” that will focus on a specific assortment of plants and microbes that the DOE hopes to exploit to produce biofuels, to sequester carbon in the ecosystem, and […]
