Articles tagged with: biomass recalcitrance
(Newswise/U.S. Department of Energy) Researchers from Spain, Poland and Ireland have developed a new computational method to rapidly screen the effects of point mutations in bacteria to make biofuel production more efficient — Converting fibrous …
by Tracey Bryant (University of Delaware) … A UD research team has invented a more efficient process for extracting the sugars from wood chips, corn cobs and other organic waste from forests and farms.
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Basudeb Saha, associate …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) The US Department of Energy is supporting projects to investigate and recommend promising pathways for advanced biological upgrading of biomass sugars and lignin to hydrocarbons (HC) and co-products to support …
by Ruth Lothe (Norwegian University of Life Sciences) In 2010, researchers at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) were the first to describe a new class of enzymes that have created a revolution in …
(Phys.Org/Bangor University) Far from being a load of rubbish, landfill sites should be considered one of the great untapped resources in the search for new enzymes for biotechnology, and could fuel more efficient biofuel production.
A …
(U.S. Department of Energy) The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced today that it will award a fourth project—up to $1.8 million—under the MEGA-BIO: Bioproducts to Enable Biofuels Funding Opportunity. In August 2016, DOE’s Bioenergy …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) The BioEnergy Science Center (BESC) is a multi-institutional (18 partners), Department of Energy-funded research organization performing basic and applied science dedicated to improving yields of biofuels by focusing on the fundamental …
(U.S. Department of Energy) Introduced traits remain stable, improving biofuel production in a field setting. — … Near-term fossil fuel alternatives could reduce carbon emissions and ensure U.S. energy security. One alternative uses switchgrass, …
by Jeremy Rumsey and Heidi Hill (U.S. Department of Energy) Producing biofuels like ethanol from plant materials requires various enzymes to break down the cellulosic fibers. Scientists using neutron scattering have identified the specifics of …
(Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory/Phys.Org) A major bottleneck hindering cost-effective production of biofuels and many valuable chemicals is the difficulty of breaking down cellulose—an important structural component of plant cell walls. A recent study addressed this …
by Patrick C. Miller (Ethanol Producer Magazine) The Department of Energy’s three bioenergy research centers have no intention of resting on their accomplishments. — In the 10 years since the U.S. DOE established three bioenergy …
(Phys.Org/University of Hong Kong) Straw is commonly used for feeding animals, burning, baling, etc. As one of the “Three Canton Treasures”, straw can actually be used as a raw material to produce biofuel.
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With an increasing …
(U.S. Department of Energy/Sandia National Laboratories/EurekAlert!) A recent discovery by Sandia National Laboratories researchers may unlock the potential of biofuel waste — and ultimately make biofuels competitive with petroleum.
Fuel made from plants is much more …
by Viola Zhou (South China Morning Post) Lydia Lam Pui-ying will further her study at Kyoto University in Japan —
Hong Kong and Japanese scientists have discovered a new way to make biofuel from rice straw, …
by Larry Lee (Brownfield Ag News) A University of Wisconsin professor says his termite research might help the biofuels, livestock, and paper industries improve lignin processing.
Researcher Cameron Currie says breaking down the woody substrate in …
Bernard Cooker (Chemical Processing Solutions/Lee Enterprises Consulting/Biofuels Digest) Cheap, plentiful lignocellulosic biomass (LCB), consisting of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, is deconstructed to release useful chemical intermediates in the bioeconomy. These include glucose from cellulose, glucose …
by Meghan Sapp (Biofuels Digest) In Virginia, researchers from Virginia Tech University have determined that 52% of advanced biofuels facilities were already closed in 2015 and have determined a list of 23 barriers that could …
(Washington State University/Biomass Magazine) Researchers at Washington State University Tri-Cities and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have found a new way to define the molecular structure of cellulose, which could lead to cheaper and more efficient ways …
by Helena Tavares Kennedy (Biofuels Digest) … While there were big questions, there were big answers, beginning with a panel on The Sustainable Agriculture Imperative. John Pieper from Dupont Industrial Biosciences shared their latest work with …
(Oak Ridge National Laboratory/Biomass Magazine) Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have released the largest-ever single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) dataset of genetic variations in poplar trees, information useful to plant scientists …
(University of Cambridge) Molecules 10,000 times narrower than the width of a human hair could hold the key to making possible wooden skyscrapers and more energy-efficient paper production, according to research published today in the …
(U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science) Producing fuels from plants and other renewable sources requires breaking down the chemical cellulose; a major candidate to drive, or catalyze, this stubborn chemical is a ubiquitous microorganism called Clostridium thermocellum …
(Phys.Org) Plant cell walls, which constitute the bulk of plant biomass, are diverse, complex, and dynamic in their structural composition and integrity. Cell walls are innately resistant to deconstruction by biological or chemical catalysts. This …
(University of Arkansas) A University of Arkansas chemistry professor has received a $400,000 award from the National Science Foundation to investigate a roadblock in the harvesting of biomass from perennial plants for the purpose of …
(Oklahoma State University/Biomass Magazine) The popular method of breaking down lignin to convert biomass into valuable biofuels and chemicals is done by using fungi. However, researchers at Oklahoma State University are turning that process on …
(U.S. Department of Agriculture) The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the joint investment of $10 million towards research that will …
(Phys.Org) … The team, including Professor Paul Walton and Professor Gideon Davies of the Department of Chemistry at York, today presents the first published molecular structure of one of the key enzymes (lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases or …
by Melody M. Bomgardner (Chemical & Engineering News) Researchers at the Joint BioEnergy Institute transform biomass into energy-rich fuel molecules — .. JBEI researchers are zeroing in on concepts that others have decided are too …
(Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) Researchers from across the world, including from Virginia Tech, plan to mimic the chemistry of the brown rot fungus to improve biorefining processes. BioMim, a $4 million, four-year project …
(Oak Ridge National Laboratory/NewsWise) Lignin–hemicellulose simulation demonstrates potential for predictive modeling using NAMD — Turning trees, grass, and other biomass into fuel for automobiles and airplanes is a costly and complex process. Biofuel researchers are …
by Isabel Lane (Biofuels Digest) In Europe, E4tech has just completed a new study, ‘From the Sugar Platform to biofuels and biochemicals’ for the European Commission (DG ENER), a comprehensive evidence base for policymakers and …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) Another step towards commercial scale, aimed at “secure supply” of cellulose-lignin solids for Renmatix’ Georgia facility
Renmatix announced that it has acquired existing assets of the former Mascoma corporation’s 56,000 square …
by Krista Eastman (University of Wisconsin-Madison) Scientists have demonstrated the potential for softwoods to process more easily into pulp and paper if engineered to incorporate a key feature of hardwoods. The finding, published in this week’s …
(Science Daily) Researchers will genetically modify tobacco plants to produce enzymes that can break down biomass from forest raw materials. This may lead to a more effective, economic and sustainable production of biofuels, they say.
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Today …
by Daehwan Chung, Minseok Cha, Adam M. Guss, and Janet Westpheling (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) The ever-increasing demand for transportation fuels, the decrease in global petroleum reserves, and the negative impact of greenhouse …
by Silke Schmidt (Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center) … In the summer of 2009, Gina Lewin participated in a National Science Foundation-funded program called Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU), which invites college juniors and seniors to join …
… (Daniel) Amador-Noguez’s lab focuses on understanding metabolism in biofuel-producing bacteria with the goal of engineering microbes that can more efficiently convert plant biomass to energy. It’s exciting research, but it’s also the kind of …
(University of Georgia/Biomass Magazine) Researchers at the University of Georgia have discovered that manipulation of a specific gene in a hardwood tree species not only makes it easier to break down the wood into fuel, …
(Science Daily/University of California-Riverside) Researchers have invented a novel pretreatment technology that could cut the cost of biofuels production by about 30 percent or more by dramatically reducing the amount of enzymes needed to breakdown …
(North Carolina State University/Ethanol Producer Magazine) Scientists are using biotechnology to chip away at barriers to producing biofuels from woody plants and grasses instead of the corn and sugarcane used to make ethanol.
NC State’s Forest …
(University of Wisconsin-Madison) What do biofuels look like on the Wisconsin landscape? Some might think of corn or switchgrass. But what about that herd of cows? What you can’t see might fool you. Cows are …
by Joanne Ivancic* (Advanced Biofuels USA) Golden Leaf Energy’s Troy A. Clark grew up in Louisiana. Studying chemical engineering at Tulane University brought him into contact with the oil industry. And yet, as his career …
(University of California) University of California, Los Angeles chemical engineering researchers have created a new synthetic metabolic pathway for breaking down glucose that could lead to a 50 percent increase in the production of biofuels.
The …
(University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) Scientists report in Nature Communications that they have engineered yeast to consume acetic acid, a previously unwanted byproduct of the process of converting plant leaves, stems and other tissues into biofuels. The …
by Tom Rickey (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) Scientists looking to create a potent blend of enzymes to transform materials like corn stalks and wood chips into fuels have developed a test that should turbocharge their …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) At the frontier of exotic temperature and pressures, even everyday materials like water begin to act strangely in ways that can drive energy transformation. New work in nanocatalysts may make …
by Brianne Pfannenstiel (Kansas City Business Journal) The University of Missouri-Kansas City was awarded two grants totaling more than $2 million this week.
The first is a grant valued at $1.2 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute …
(Fraunhofer) Crude oil is getting scarce. This is why researchers are seeking to substitute petroleum-based products – like plastics – with sustainable raw materials. Waste wood, divided into lignin and cellulose, could serve as a …
(The Norwegian University of Science and Technology/Alpha Galileo) Until now, it has taken weeks to make biofuel from trees. This slow pace has been a bottleneck for the industry. Researchers from the Norwegian University of …
by Joanna Schroeder (DomesticFuel.com) Scientists from the University of Illinois have reported that they have engineered yeast to consume acetic acid, a previously unwanted byproduct of the process of converting plant leaves, stems and other tissues into …
by Scott Mowrey (Ethanol Producer Magazine) A primer outlines the inherent challenges for biofuel production using biomass
Raw cellulose from plant biomass is composed of six classes of materials with varying percentages and widely different physical …
by Bryan Walsh (Time Magazine) It’s not that companies don’t know how to make cellulosic ethanol or biofuel from algae. It’s that they’ve struggled to do so cheaply and at a scale large enough to …
by Erika Gebel Berg (Chemical and Engineering News) Protein Engineering: Scientists evolve a bacterial protein pump that pulls butanol out of cells to make microbes into better biofuel factories
Biologists can engineer microorganisms to make biofuels, …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) After taking a leading role in the global first generation wave of ethanol production, here come the Brazilians — with some hot North American technologies in tow — to take …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) … Midori reports they have broken through on a 100-year quest for low-cost cellulosic sugars. And found a way to turn your cotton tees into sugars, too.
About a year ago, a …
(Flagship Ventures/PR NewsWire) New Venture is Commercializing a Novel Catalytic Process to Convert Non-Food Biomass Into Sugar
Flagship VentureLabs announced today that Midori Renewables is globally deploying their Breaking the Biomass Barrier™ technology, a novel catalyst …
(Clemson University) Clemson University researchers focusing on switchgrass as a renewable fuel source are looking to fungi and bacteria — nature’s specialists in decomposing plants and animals into elements that can be reused to support …
(Argonne Leadership Computing Facility/Ethanol Producer Magazine) Scientists working at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility are looking to nature’s catalysts, enzymes, for inspiration in their quest to find a more effective means of converting biomass into …
(Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center) Bioprospecting for Cellulose-Degrading Microbes: Filter Paper Assay Method
Students collect samples that they predict will contain communities of cellulose-degrading microbes and test for the ability of microrganisms in their samples to …
The Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemical covers topics such as:
Enzyme Science & Technology
Biomass Supply & Sustainability
Plant Science & Technology
Algae Science & Technology
Biomass Recalcitrance
Pretreatment & Fractionation
Bacterial Science & Technology
Yeast and Fungal Science & Technology
Bioprocessing & Separations …
Abstract submission is now open for the 36th Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals (SBFC). The 36th SBFC will be held April 28-May 1, 2014 at the Hilton Clearwater Beach Hotel in Clearwater Beach, …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) Upstream, downstream, processing, policy, finance – opportunities and challenges abound in the bioeconomy – but which challenges are the most intractable and daunting of them all?
In today’s part 1, #10 …
(Science Magazine) Addition by subtraction. By removing a specific gene, researchers reduced the amount of lignin (stained red) by 36% in cells in a plant’s stem, making it easier to recover sugar-rich parts of the plant …
by Jennifer Laaser (Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel)
Look at a leaf-cutter ant colony, and it’s a bustle of activity, with ants bringing pieces of leaves in, spreading them around on a honeycomb-like bed of fungus, and …
(JustMeans.com/Wisconsin Institute for Sustainable Technology) Promising biofuels research at a Wisconsin biotech company and a partner university is getting a boost from a $224,967 National Science Foundation grant.
C5.6 Technologies of Middleton, Wis., and the Wisconsin …
(Wall Street Daily) …Meet the gribble.
Essentially, gribbles are the termites of the sea. That is, they’re marine pests that feed exclusively on wood. As you can imagine, that doesn’t make them very popular with the …
by Dahai Gao, Shishir P. S. Chundawat, Anurag Sethi, Venkatesh Balana, S. Gnanakaran, and Bruce E. Dale (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) Substrate binding is typically one of the rate-limiting steps preceding enzyme catalytic …
by Bill Scanlon (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) Biofuels scientists are asking more complex questions about how molecules spin, bond, and break when enzymes attack plants — all in the name of quickening the process of …
(National Renewable Energy Laboratory/Ethanol Producer Magazine) Enzymes could break down cell walls faster – leading to less expensive biofuels for transportation – if two enzyme systems are brought together in an industrial setting, new research …
(Science Daily) Stepping into unexplored territory in efforts to use corn stalks, grass and other non-food plants to make biofuels, scientists have described the discovery of a potential treasure-trove of candidate enzymes in fungi thriving …
by Lynn Yarris (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) When blessed with a resource in overwhelming abundance it’s generally a good idea to make valuable use of that resource. Lignocellulosic biomass is the most abundant organic material …
by Thomas W. Kerlin (ISA Interchange) …Plants convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar via photosynthesis using energy from the sun. The sugar undergoes further transformations within the plant. Carbohydrates, compounds composed entirely of carbon, …
by Bill Scanlon (National Renewable Energy Laboratory/Renewable Energy World) A screening tool from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) eases and greatly quickens one of the thorniest tasks in the biofuels …
by James Hataway (University of Georgia) When Li Tan approached his colleagues at the University of Georgia with some unusual data he had collected, they initially seemed convinced that his experiment had become contaminated; what …
by Susanne Retka Schill (Ethanol Producer Magazine) Researchers at the Joint BioEnergy Institute are exploring new ways to meet the challenge of recalcitrant cellulosic feedstocks and lower the cost of biomass-based biofuels. The group recently published …
(University of Illinois/EurekAlert!) One reason that biofuels are expensive to make is that the organisms used to ferment the biomass cannot make effective use of hemicellulose, the next most abundant cell wall component after cellulose. …
(US Department of Energy/National Renewable Energy Laboratory) Breakthrough could help optimize capture of sugars for biofuels
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the BioEnergy Science Center (BESC) combined different …
by Lynn Yarris (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) Joint BioEnergy Institute Researchers Find New Access to Abundant Biomass for Advanced Biofuels
After cellulose, xylan is the most abundant biomass material on Earth, and therefore represents an enormous …
(Fraunhofer Center for Chemical-Biotechnological Processes) Crude oil is getting scarce. This is why researchers are seeking to substitute petroleum-based products – like plastics – with sustainable raw materials. Waste wood, divided into lignin and cellulose, …
by Kari Lydersen (Midwestern Energy News) Purdue University associate professor Richard Meilan is striving to develop a poplar tree that grows more quickly and can be more easily converted to biofuel than the average member of the genus …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) What exactly happens in depolymerization, as hydrogen bonds break down? How could that revolutionize the process of making fuels, solvents, thinners, lacquers or paints out of biobased materials?
Before one is …
by Zhifang Cui, Caixia Wan, Jian Shi, Robert W. Sykes, and Yebo Li (Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research) Corn stover fractions (leaves, cobs, and stalks) were studied for enzymatic digestibility after pretreatment with a white rot fungus, Ceriporiopsis subvermispora. Among the three …
(PR NewsWire/DEINOVE) This breakthrough using Deinococcus could be the solution to a global issue: replacing fossil fuel with a fuel from nonfood biomass
announced that its R&D team and its partners in the DEINOL program …
Hui Shen, Xianzhi He, Charleson R. Poovaiah, Wegi A. Wuddineh, Junying Ma, David G. J. Mann, Huanzhong Wang, Lisa Jackson, Yuhong Tang, C. Neal Stewart Jr, Fang Chen, Richard A. Dixon (New Phytologist)
The major obstacle for bioenergy production from switchgrass biomass is the low saccharification efficiency …
by Chunxiang Fu, Jonathan R. Mielenz, Xirong Xiao, Yaxin Ge, Choo Y. Hamilton, Miguel Rodriguez, Jr., Fang Chen, Marcus Foston, Arthur Ragauskas, Joseph Bouton, Richard A. Dixon, and Zeng-Yu Wang (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) Switchgrass is a leading dedicated bioenergy …
Lina Gallego-Giraldo, Luis Escamilla-Trevino, Lisa A. Jackson, and Richard A. Dixon (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) Down-regulation of the enzyme hydroxycinnamoyl CoA: shikimate hydroxycinnamoyl transferase (HCT) in thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) and alfalfa (Medicago sativa) leads …
Huanzhong Wang, Utku Avci, Jin Nakashima, Michael G. Hahn, Fang Chen, and Richard A. Dixon (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) Stems of dicotyledonous plants consist of an outer epidermis, a cortex, a ring of secondarily …
by James Hataway (UGA Today) Since 2007, researchers at the BioEnergy Science Center, one of three Department of Energy-funded research centers, have partnered to figure out how to break down plants so that they easily …
(Ledger-Enquirer) …Researchers at the University of Georgia may be close to finding it. A report by Susan Mittleman on Georgia Public Broadcasting and transcribed on the Public Broadcasting Atlanta website (pba.org) describes a promising new …
(R&D Magazine) With metabolically engineered microorganisms hungry for levulinic acid rather than sugar, a University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) chemical and biological engineer aims to create more sustainable, cost-effective processes for converting biomass into high-energy-density hydrocarbon …
(JustMeans.com) A patent that opens the door for the creation of biofuels from abundantly available plant fiber has been issued to researchers at the Wisconsin Institute for Sustainable Technology (WIST) at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens …
by Holly Jessen (Ethanol Producer Magazine) Key proteins have been identified in a family of bacteria that help the microbes grab onto pieces of plant material in order to better degrade it. This was discovered …
by Jill Sakai and Renee Meiller (University of Wisconsin-Madison) A young generation of researchers are seeking biofuels in some unlikely sounding places: toxic algae blooms and cow stomachs.
Two University of Wisconsin-Madison professors are drawing on …
by Dan Morgan (The Globalist) The plant world has a curious way of providing fodder for Republicans in the midst of important elections in the United States. In 1988, the party cast the Democrat’s presidential …
(Trillium FiberFuels Inc./Biorefining Magazine) A team of scientists from Trillium FiberFuels and Oregon State University has been awarded a Small Business Technology Transfer grant from the U.S. DOE to further develop innovative enzymes that could …
(CFOCEO Magazine) …Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – April 20, 2012
…C1 is a very unique fungus we found in the Russian soil in an alkaline lake in the early 1990’s. …
(ScienceAlert/Ecos Magazine) Cellulose in plant cell walls contains sugars used to manufacture biofuels. However, this cellulose also resists decomposition, making it difficult to extract the sugars for use. New research into how plants form cellulose …
by Guy Gugliotta (New York Times) …Dr. (David A.) Mullin (a professor of molecular biology at Tulane University)was collecting manure from giraffes and other exotic ruminants at the zoo, a few blocks from his laboratory. …
(IFP Energies Nouvelles) The numerous research programmes looking at new-generation biofuels that were initiated over the last ten years are now starting to bear fruit. Although no plants are producing and
marketing biofuels yet, the large-scale, industrial …
by Rachel Z. Arndt (FastCompany) …(W)e speak with Mary Tilton, VP of plant operations at Virent, which is using chemistry to turn plants into fuel.
“We are replacing crude oil. We’re using catalytic chemistry to …
by Lauren Sommer (KQED) …The idea behind biofuels is pretty simple. Plants take sunlight and use that energy to make sugars. The biofuels industry wants to transform those sugars into fuel. That requires some molecular …
(Science Daily) …However, technologies are being developed to generate bioethanol from non-food sources, such as the lignocellulosics present in switchgrass and trees. The sugars locked in the polymers of cell walls, i.e., cellulose, hemicellulose and …
(Physorg.com) Taking a cue from Mother Nature, researchers at the Department of Energy’s BioEnergy Science Center have undertaken a first-of-its-kind study of a naturally occurring phenomenon in trees to spur the development of more efficient …
(Department of Energy/Los Alamos National Laboratory/EurekAlert!) LANL molecular model helps expose cellulose weakness
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory and Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center have found a potential key for …
by Paul Voosen (New York Times/Greenwire) …For eons, plants have locked the sun’s energy into complex strands of sugar, used to build their stems and leaves. These chains are far different from table sugar or …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) Research from ORNL reveals new details of bioenergy’s most daunting technical barrier
…Lignin, for those newer to the biofuels world, is a complex chemical compound that makes veggies, plants and wood …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) A new generation of technologists aim high in value, low in cost, as the race for sugars to process into biofuels amps up a notch or three
“You know, we hear …
(KQED/Quest/Planet Forward) For years there’s been buzz — both positive and negative — about generating ethanol fuel from corn. The Bay Area is rapidly becoming a world center for the next generation of green fuel …
(University of California, Riverside) Research by UC Riverside’s Charles Wyman could lead to less expensive production of biofuels
New clues about plant structure are helping researchers from the Department of Energy’s BioEnergy Science Center narrow down a …
by Blake Simmons (Vice-President, Deconstruction Division, Joint BioEnergy Institute) Simmons provides an overview of Joint Bioenergy Institute (JBI) and their research associated with converting cellulosic biomass to biofuel. He describes the challenges of the various …
by Dr. Mark Davis (BioEnergy Science Center, National Bioenergy Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory) Dr. Davis discusses a multidisciplinary approach to overcoming the current inability to access sugars in lignocellulosic biomass. By quickly identifying key …
(Science Daily) New insight into the structure of switchgrass and poplars is fueling discussions that could result in more efficient methods to turn biomass into biofuel.
Researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) …This is the Rome Labs site, which does quite a bit of intelligence-related R&D. The super-secret nature of cellulosic development is not entirely different – though hugh-hush cadres of generals …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) In New Hampshire, Mascoma reported yesterday that it had acquired SunOpta BioProcess, a division of SunOpta Inc. (STKL) This combination brings together the fiber preparation and pretreatment technologies of SBI …
by Robert F. Service (Science Magazine) Much of the optimism surrounding cellulosic ethanol has faded because of the ongoing economic slump, a plentiful supply of ethanol made from corn, and uncertainty among policymakers. Numerous companies …
by Margaret Broeren (University of Wisconsin) A research team at the DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) has developed a powerful new tool that promises to unlock the secrets of biomass degradation, a critical …
(Oak Ridge National Lab) Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are improving strains of microorganisms used to convert cellulosic biomass into ethanol, including a recent modification that could improve the efficiency of …
(University of Minnesota) The Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment (IREE) recently awarded over $5.1 million to 24 renewable energy research and demonstration projects at the University of Minnesota.
The selected projects focus on a …
(Colorado State University) Dissolving plant biomass in “green” solvent ionic liquids – salts that melt at low temperatures – converts more sugars needed for biofuel more quickly than traditional methods, according to a new study …
by Joseph B. Binder and Ronald T. Raines (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) Abundant plant biomass has the potential to become a sustainable source of fuels and chemicals. Realizing this potential requires the …
Evolution Resources, Inc., an advanced biofuels production company focused on the production of cellulosic ethanol using the latest in modern processes and technologies, today announced the signing of a Testing Services Agreement with North Carolina …
Martin Keller, Ph.D. (BioEnergy Science Center) Presentation details biomass recalcitrance and various methods being researched to break down cellulose, hemicellulose, pectins, lignins into sugars as an intermediary step to ethanol production or to serve as …
Research reported in the December issue of the American Society of Microbiology’s journal Applied and Environment Microbiology on the development of a thermostable enzyme opens the way to a new pathway for low-cost biofuel production …
Focusing on its work with corn cobs as a cellulosic ethanol feedstock, POET’s latest video provides a basic look at what it is taking to move from fermentation of starch to conversion of cellulose to …
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI) has selected 71 new genomic sequencing projects for its 2010 Community Sequencing Program (CSP)—a targeted sampling of the planet’s biodiversity—to be characterized for bioenergy, climate, …
(Renewable Energy World) … The use of ionic liquids — salts that are liquids rather than crystals at room temperature — to dissolve lignocellulose and later help hydrolyze the resulting liquor into sugars, shows promise …
“Without overcoming biomass recalcitrance, cellulosic biofuels will be more expensive than corn biofuels. Improved sugar conversion is not enough.” From the presentation by Martin Keller, Ph.D., Director of the BioEnergy Science Center describing the efforts …
Instead of bringing sufficient supplies of biomass to processing facilities, Atlantic Biomass Conversions, Inc., proposes taking decentralized enzymatic conversion units to the crops. Following the model of wheat harvesting combines that follow the harvest season, …
by Dylan Dodd and Isaac K. O. Cann (Global Change Biology Bioenergy) The combustion of fossil-derived fuels has a significant impact on atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and correspondingly is an important contributor to anthropogenic global climate …
by Michael E. Himmel, Shi-You Ding, David K. Johnson, William S. Adney, Mark R. Nimlos, John W. Brady and Thomas D. Foust (Science Magazine) Lignocellulosic biomass has long been recognized as a potential sustainable source of mixed sugars for fermentation to biofuels and …
