By Dave VanderGriend, President Urban Air Initiative Special to The Digest There have been many Hollywood movies where a character woke up to find they had become something else—a grown up becoming a kid, or a woman becoming a man, and so forth. Seems crazy but perhaps not so much because anyone who owns a […]
From Enerkem in Canada comes the news that the company has snagged outgoing Chief Technology Officer and Director of Sustainability at AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals, Peter Nieuwenhuizen. AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals spun out as Nouryon and now Nieuwenhuizen has spun out in to the world of emerging companies, after a 25-year run at Akzo. Nouryon, and Enerkem […]
Drop-in fuels from syngas are in. Syngas feedstocks are relatively inexpensive and diverse, thermophiles have several unique advantages, and end products have value as fuel and solvent applications among others. Sounds like win, win, win, right? But the big question that Kiverdi and NREL are working on right now are how to develop recombinant thermophilic […]
In Washington, the U.S. Department of Energy has selected 35 projects totaling $73 million for bioenergy research and development support. Funded through the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, these projects will help reduce the price of drop-in biofuels, lower the cost of biopower, and enable high-value products from biomass or waste resources. […]
As frustrated as you may get with your pet sometimes, we aren’t talking about upcycling dogs and cats here, but PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic that is typically landfilled. One group at NREL and ORNL are working on developing cost-effective biological methods to better breakdown and upcycle PET. At the recent DOE BETO 2019 Project Peer […]
Green Chemistry Campus, REWIN and Wageningen University are planning the development of the first multipurpose Polymerization Shared Facility Pilot Plant in Bergen op Zoom. In this facility new and redesigned bio-polymers can be produced at a sub-commercial scale.Currently the consortium is looking for companies in the field of new (biobased) polymers that are interested to […]
Today, let’s look at Amyris, which started out on a fuels journey and spawned instead a zillion ventures from its amazing alumni, but has re-invented itself as a company immersed in flavors, fragrances, CBD, and synthetic biology at its best. Also, with today’s headline, I’d like to pay a small tribute to a friend from […]
The industry is always on the look for microbial pathways that are capable of producing high carbon efficiency intermediates that are amenable to economic bioconversion, separation, and catalytic upgrading to hydrocarbon fuels and chemicals. At the recent DOE BETO 2019 Project Peer Review, Min Zhang and Michael Himmel from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, shared […]
Enzyme technology enables advanced biofuels. But can we do better? Can enzymes improve conversion? Can understanding enzyme structure, function, activity technology enable industrial enzyme improvement while reducing company R&D cost? Michael Himmel, Senior Research Fellow from NREL’s Biomolecular Sciences group gave this presentation at the DOE’s BETO Project Peer Review that looks at how they […]
Q: What was the reason for founding your organization – what was the open niche you saw that could be addressed with a new product or service? What was the problem, or gap, or opportunity? Sweet Gazoil (SGO) was founded with the goal of protecting the environment by providing cost-effective technologies to treat mixed […]
