In Tennessee, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are joining the Bio-Optimized Technologies to keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment, or BOTTLE, Consortium. In collaboration with other national laboratories, ORNL scientists will support the development of new plastics that are recyclable-by-design and customize microbes and processes to break down […]
In the UK, scientists have built tiny droplet-based microbial factories that produce hydrogen, instead of oxygen, when exposed to daylight in air. The findings of the international research team based at the University of Bristol and Harbin Institute of Technology in China, are published in Nature Communications. The team trapped around 10,000 algal cells in […]
In Iowa, a new study from Iowa State University shows that carbon-rich biochar could be used to mitigate many odors and potentially toxic volatile organic compounds emitted from swine manure. The research team tested two types of biochar with different characteristics: biochar from red oak and a highly alkaline, porous biochar made from corn stover. Three 30-day […]
In Mississippi, a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy will benefit Mississippi State researchers in the university’s Forest and Wildlife Research Center studying the economic and ecological benefits of growing trees for biofuel production. The DOE funding will help MSU scientists study how to produce better, hardier hybrid poplars and eastern cottonwoods […]
In Pennsylvania, a multi-institutional research group led by two Penn State faculty members identified, for the first time, how cellulose crystals orient themselves relative to the cell wall in plants, with potential implications for chemical and energy development. “A more detailed understanding of the structure of plant cell walls could lead to new strategies for […]
In the United Kingdom, Livingston Group at Imperial College London in collaboration with bp developed a membrane-based extraction system which uses less than 25 percent of the energy of current processes and produces ten times more biofuel with over 99.5 percent purity. In their labs at Imperial, researchers investigated the performance of several thin-film composite […]
In Australia, Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) are working on producing bio-derived chemicals that could be used to develop more sustainable jet fuels and developed a method for increasing the energy content of aviation fuel derived from bio-based feedstocks. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office through the Chemical Catalysis […]
In Australia, CSIRO and Monash University developed a device that captures carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere and its inventors say it’s the most cost-effective method of capturing CO₂ yet devised. In the short term, they hope their Airthena device will be used to produce the 100 million tonnes of CO₂ that Australia imports each […]
In India, Tribune India reports that Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati researchers have formulated efficient ‘pincer’ catalytic systems that transform industrial/biomass wastes into valuable chemicals like lactic acid and hydrogen. Such catalysts also efficiently convert bioethanol, a low-energy density fuel, into high-energy density butanol. “Pincer catalysts are complex molecules in which, an organic moiety holds […]
In Colorado, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researchers, with funding support from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), developed a method to isolate organic compounds, specifically the monomers which are precursors to everyday materials like plastics, out of biorefinery aqueous waste. The NREL team addressed the thermochemical conversion strategy of catalytic fast […]
