Lego’s Biobased Bricks; Vertoro’s Green Crude Oil; Nitogen-Fixing Microbes for Corn; Diapers from Food Waste; 3D Imaging; Apeel’s $70M: The Digest’s Top 10 Innovations for the Week of August 15th
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) The pace of invention and change is just too strong, we’ve realized, to highlight annual or even quarterly or monthly rankings and summaries of significant product and service advances. For now, we’re going to be tracking these on a weekly basis to keep pace with the changes. Here are the top innovations for the week of August 15th.
#1 LEGO letting go of petroleum-based blocks …
#2 Vertoro creating green crude lignin oil from paper pulp — In the Netherlands, Vertoro, Spanish for “Green Gold” is turning lignin into crude lignin oil, or CLO which is similar to fossil crude oil. Vertoro, along with Professor Emiel Hensen from Eindhoven University of Technology, received a grant worth €40.000 (about $46,000) awarded by the NWO Domain Applied and Engineering Sciences. The grant will be used to improve on and further scale up the production of CLO. Ultimately, in 2019 and 2022 a 50 ton pilot and 10.000 ton demo CLO plant, respectively, will be constructed at the Brightlands Chemelot Campus in Geleen, according to Innovation Origins.
In contrast to the traditional ways of lignin conversion, the Vertoro approach does not require catalysts, acids, or even solvent recovery.
The latter attribute of technology means that no boiling of the solvent is required, thereby saving on energy and leaving a relatively low carbon footprint, according to Innovation Origins. The end product of the process is a mixture of lignin and solvent. In the future, Vertoro plans to sell licenses for CLO production to companies with lignin streams.
More on the story.
#3 Nitrogen-producing microbes could solve Corn Belt’s environmental woes — In San Francisco, Pivot Bio Advances is beta testing the first sustainable source of nitrogen for corn. The field trial plants receive nitrogen daily from Pivot Bio’s proprietary and field-tested microbes.
…
Pivot Bio’s nitrogen-producing microbes are applied at the time the corn crop is planted and grow along the root system of the corn, delivering nitrogen daily to the plant. There is no excess chemical nitrogen produced in this process. The beta program is the final step before product is commercially available for use with corn for 2019 planting.
More on the story.
#4 Seafood waste could have second life as biodegradable diapers …
#5 2-D and 3-D images combine to accurately predict plant growth …
#6 Terramino Foods uses fungi to make high-protein, plant-based salmon burgers …
#7 Green oleochemicals plant planned for China …
#8 Apeel Sciences raises $70 million to further reduce food waste in fresh produce …
#9 Biobased sanitary pads startup add Ayurveda investor …
#10 Rebuilding Cleveland with mushrooms READ MORE
