Category: Top Stories

The advanced bioeconomy’s second technology wave: a sneak preview of ABLC Global

The advanced bioeconomy’s second technology wave: a sneak preview of ABLC Global

August 13, 2018 |

We’re just a few days out from ABLC Global’s 2 for 1 deadline. Time to give some perspective on what we’re driving at. The Rationale It’s all about our continuing mission to boldly go where no event has gone before — specifically, to bring the whole of the bioeconomy’s leadership to be in one place […]

Read More

From food waste to biobased

From food waste to biobased

August 11, 2018 |

“Eat everything on your plate.” “You can’t leave the table until that plate is clean.” “You know, there are starving kids that would love to have that food on your plate.” Maybe you grew up hearing that many times. Maybe you snuck some of those yucky veggies to your dog. Maybe you even remember the […]

Read More

Edible cutlery, organic burial, spider silk for football helmets & hearing aids, bellybutton bacteria, Elon Musk biobased surfboards: The Digest’s Top 10 Innovations for the week of August 8th

Edible cutlery, organic burial, spider silk for football helmets & hearing aids, bellybutton bacteria, Elon Musk biobased surfboards: The Digest’s Top 10 Innovations for the week of August 8th

August 9, 2018 |

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 […]

Read More

Oil’s relentless price climb brings advanced biofuels back in vogue

Oil’s relentless price climb brings advanced biofuels back in vogue

August 9, 2018 |

For several years now we have seen a significant number of players pivoting from biofuels towards smaller but higher-value markets in chemicals, nutrition,  nutraceuticals, pharma, materials, flavorings, fragrances, cosmetics and more. We’ve reported on the proliferation of applications both in the Digest and in What’s Nuu? and indeed there’s been so much that’s Nuu, it’s […]

Read More

Cannabis, canola, solids, hog fuel, wheat: what’s new with food and feedstocks?

Cannabis, canola, solids, hog fuel, wheat: what’s new with food and feedstocks?

August 7, 2018 |

We eat it, we wear it, we burn it, we glue it, we live in it and more. Feedstock that is — crops and residues of the municipal, industrial, agricultural and forest type. We’ve been reporting all the innovations in making new stuff from this old stuff. But who’s doing what to make old stuff […]

Read More

A factory no bigger than a molecule, now producing fuels, chemicals and materials

A factory no bigger than a molecule, now producing fuels, chemicals and materials

August 6, 2018 |

A team from Switzerland has come up with a black box the size of a molecule, and inside that box they can generate the precursors for fuels, pesticides and face creams with astonishing yields and simplicity. Specifically, they are making compounds that within the 50,000-molecule group known as terpenes — and if you’ve smelled a […]

Read More

Plastics proliferation transitioning to bioplastics boost

Plastics proliferation transitioning to bioplastics boost

August 5, 2018 |

IHS Markit published a plastics report saying that the market value for biodegradable polymers exceeds $1 billion and will rise sharply by 2023 thanks to increased plastic regulations and bans in Western Europe. But it’s not just Europe that we are seeing bans on plastic. Multinational companies like Kraft, Starbucks, McDonalds, Marriott, Disney and more […]

Read More

The Top 10 advances in renewable butanol: what’s speeding up, where are the slow-downs?

The Top 10 advances in renewable butanol: what’s speeding up, where are the slow-downs?

August 2, 2018 |

From Portugal comes the news that SilicoLife was awarded with a SME instrument phase 1 grant for the commercial evaluation of its BUTANOVA technology, a new biological process to produce n-butanol. BUTANOVA technology consists on a novel and proprietary metabolic pathway designed computationally by SilicoLife and implemented and experimentally validated in collaboration with University of […]

Read More

The Digest’s Top 10 Innovations for the week of August 2nd: waste plastics for fuels and sneakers, eggs without the chicken, 3D printing, algae-based ketchup packaging, green funerals, biodegradable grills

The Digest’s Top 10 Innovations for the week of August 2nd: waste plastics for fuels and sneakers, eggs without the chicken, 3D printing, algae-based ketchup packaging, green funerals, biodegradable grills

August 1, 2018 |

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 […]

Read More

Carbon Capture, Solar Fuels, Fossil Bubble

Carbon Capture, Solar Fuels, Fossil Bubble

July 31, 2018 |

In Spain, BIOCON-CO2, a new €7 million EU Horizon 2020-funded research project, has recently kicked-off with intentions of supporting EU leadership in carbon dioxide (CO2) re-use technologies. BIOCON-CO2 aims to re-use excess CO2 produced from the iron, steel, cement and electric power industries to create value-added chemicals and plastics. This will be achieved by developing […]

Read More