In the UAE, the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MOCCAE) announced the launch of the Green Barjeel research project that aims to leverage innovative methods to grow microalgae biomass with a high lipid content in tower-shaped structures. Run in cooperation with American University of Sharjah (AUS) and Khalifa University (KU), the project involves collecting […]
In Finland, production of biofuel by gasification of biomass residues was successfully validated in the EU’s COMSYN project in September. The process performance was verified with bark in an 80 hour-long test run at VTT. The syngas conversion to Fischer-Tropsch (FT) products was conducted by IneraTec GmbH. The main focus of the test was to […]
In Germany, scientists at the Ruhr University Bochum and the University of New South Wales in Australia converted carbon dioxide into raw materials using nanoparticles. They looked at the principle for this from enzymes that produce complex molecules in many-step reactions. The team transferred this mechanism to metallic nanoparticles, also called nanozymes. For example, chemists […]
In France, Michelin announced the BioButterfly project has just reached a new milestone. After developing this new technology to produce bio-sourced butadiene from ethanol on a pilot scale, the project is now moving into a validation phase with the construction of a demonstrator at Bassens, in France. Scheduled for completion in late 2020, this demonstrator […]
In France, a unique new flexible and stretchable device, worn against the skin and capable of producing electrical energy by transforming the compounds present in sweat, was recently developed and patented by CNRS researchers from l’Université Grenoble Alpes and the University of San Diego (U.S.). This cell is already capable of continuously lighting an LED, […]
In New York state, the U.S. Department of Energy has awarded an interdisciplinary team of Cornell researchers $2 million to study the combination of inorganic semiconductor nanoparticles and bacterial cells for more efficient bioenergy conversion. The Cornell project was one of six selected by the DOE’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research to explore microscopic […]
In Spain, a team from the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department at the University of Cordoba has been searching for ways to increase hydrogen production by using microorganisms, specifically microalgae and bacteria. In this vein, researchers were able to increase hydrogen production by combining unicellular green alga called Chlamydomonas reinhardtii with Escherichia coli bacteria. The […]
In Germany, a team from the Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology of the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) and the Technical University of Kaiserslautern was able to show how the synthesis of the pink dye phycoerythrobilin works in detail. An enzyme is the key to the color of certain algae. And thus also to their ability […]
In Illinois, Western Illinois University School of Agriculture announced that one of its professors is the recipient of a $10 million federal grant to investigate the use of the alternative crop, Pennycress, as a new cash cover crop in the Midwest. The U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) grant will […]
In New Zealand, a researcher at the University of Canterbury has been awarded NZ$999,999 funded over three years by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Enterprise to study integrated chemical looping and oxygen uncoupling with advanced biomass gasification, for renewable hydrogen production and carbon dioxide capture. This research will develop a new system that combines […]
