Author Archive: Jim Lane

The Digest’s 2024 Multi-Slide Guide to Biomass Size Reduction, Drying and Densification

October 15, 2024 | Jim Lane

Low-cost carbon resources (agricultural residues, forest residue, and non recyclable municipal and industrial wastes) exhibit consistent challenges. Inherent physical and chemical variability in feedstocks result in excessive process downtime, and uncontrolled costs with documented failures in the industry as a whole. Common industry milling operations do not address core problems such as: fines, contaminants, and […]

The Digest’s 2024 Multi-Slide Guide to process intensification in the supply chain

October 14, 2024 | Jim Lane

A team of researchers have designed a project to utilize post-harvest physiology and chemistry tools during long-term storage and queuing to positively impact downstream processes through reduced chemical and energy input. They aim to enhance anatomical fractionation, co-products; improve feedstock quality, find use for discarded fractions not meeting specification; and, improve feedstock quality, improved conversion. […]

Cometstock: Comstock Fuels yields are headed for the stars. Why?

October 13, 2024 | Jim Lane

They say that if Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas lives up to expectations as it nears Earth these days, it will be comet of the century. Beg to differ on the grounds that if Comstock Fuels technology lives up to expectations, that might well be a bigger event of planetary significance . Accordingly, let’s think of it just […]

The Digest’s 2024 Multi-Slide Guide to Electrolyzers For CO2 Conversion from BioSources

October 10, 2024 | Jim Lane

Researchers have initiated a project to develop electrolyzers that can convert CO2 from biorefineries to produce useful products, and save the cost of air capture. Yet, research still has not been done on testing with CO2 from fermenter to understand how dilute/recycled CO2 will affect performance. Rich Masel of Dioxide Materials gave this presentation on […]

The Digest’s 2024 Multi-Slide Guide to Electrochemical Production of Formic Acid from Carbon Dioxide

October 9, 2024 | Jim Lane

CO2 electrolysis can utilize waste CO2 from bioreactors to produce market competitive formic acid at commercial scales. Conventional design has energy and cost intensive downstream separations. A solid electrolyte design has tunable formic acid concentration with elimination of downstream separations. Dr. Feng Jiao of the University of Delaware gave this presentation on the project at […]

The Digest’s 2024 Multi-Slide Guide to Polymer Products from Lignin

October 8, 2024 | Jim Lane

Today, lignin from pulp and paper is converted to polymer products through sulfonation. An industry goal, and the goal of this Ingevity / USC / Sandia project, is commercial products from lignin that provide 20% reduction in feedstock cost, because lignin coproducts must contribute $2-3/GGE to MFSP to meet DOE target of $3/GGE. Mike Kent […]

The Digest’s 2024 Multi-Slide Guide to Catalysis and Biological Conversion of Carbon Intermediates

October 7, 2024 | Jim Lane

CO2 capture is increasingly viewed as an important technology towards meeting climate goals. Electrocatalytic systems excel at converting CO2 into C1 and C2 compounds, but are challenged in forming additional carbon bonds. Biological systems can build complex carbon compounds from simple carbon compounds, but are less efficient at upcycling CO2 due to gas diffusion limitations […]

SEC’s Watered-Down Climate Rule and How it Affects You

October 6, 2024 | Jim Lane

By Cynthia Thyfault, CEO, QuantaVision Special to The Digest The US Securities and Exchange Commission recently finalized a climate disclosure rule that has sparked intense debate across political, corporate, and environmental spheres. Initially expected to align with the stringent climate regulations of the European Union, the SEC’s rule emerged significantly watered down after two years […]

The Digest’s 2024 Multi-Slide Guide to Production of Bioproducts from Electrochemically-Generated C1 Intermediates

October 3, 2024 | Jim Lane

CO2 Electrolysis + Gas Fermentation: a CO2 to Chemicals Platform, that’s the goal of this Argonne National Lab, LanzaTech and Dioxide Materials, project. It aims for room Temperature CO2 electrolysis (Anion Exchange Membrane based technology), and gas fermentation yield improvement through process development, metabolic engineering and arginine supplementation. Researchers have found that gas fermentation can […]

The Digest’s 2024 Multi-Slide Guide to Demonstration of continuous biobutanol fermentation integrated with membrane solvent extraction

October 2, 2024 | Jim Lane

Isobutanol (IBA), feedstock for an ASTM approved pathway for SAF production, can only be produced at low levels in fermentation (<2%) due to toxicity. Plus, there’s energy intensive recovery to consider – high heat input or high vacuum required to separate from aqueous broth. The goal of this project is to decrease energy use (by […]

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