In Illinois, a new study from the University of Illinois shows that the unobtrusive perennial vine native to Australia, called Glycine tomentella, could hold the key to substantially increase soybean yields. “We saw yield increases of 3.5 to 7 bushels per acre in soybean lines derived from crossing with Glycine tomentella,” said Randall Nelson, study […]
In Illinois, the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture has announced a grant for $1 million to support research led by a University of Illinois scientist. The research will address the need for better-adapted and higher-yielding biomass cultivars ready to plug into the biofuel supply chain in the United States. Researchers at U of […]
In Texas, researchers at Tufts University have created a genetically modified yeast that can more efficiently consume a novel nutrient, xylose, enabling the yeast to grow faster and to higher cell densities, raising the prospect of a significantly faster path toward the design of new synthetic organisms for industrial applications, according to a study published […]
In Illinois, with feed costs and the worldwide demand for meat growing, livestock producers are increasingly turning to co-products from the ethanol and human food industries. Research from the University of Illinois is helping to determine the feed value of wheat middlings and red dog, two co-products of the wheat milling process that can be […]
In New Jersey, researchers at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment use light to enhance the production of biofuels, drugs and commercial chemicals in bioreactors, which contain microorganisms such as yeast that have been metabolically engineered to make biological products. The team uses a technology called optogenetics—involving light to control cellular processes—to turn […]
In California, Greenbelt Resources signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with Georgia-based Duckweed DAYS. Duckweed DAYS is a new entity formed by entrepreneurs to commercialize and further the research carried out by the Andrew J. Young Foundation (AYF) focused on utilizing duckweed as a vegetable source of rich protein to fight malnutrition worldwide. The Duckweed Project […]
In Denmark, researchers at DTU have combined the pyrolysis method and the catalyst reaction with hydrogen in a step called catalytic hydropyrolysis. It works by feeding a reactor with solid biomass, while the catalyst is in constant motion. Hydrogen is fed in to the base of the reactor, partially lifting the biomass so it can […]
In California, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered a new enzyme that will enable microbial production of a renewable alternative to petroleum-based toluene, a widely used octane booster in gasoline that has a global market of twenty nine million tons per year. […]
In Colorado, it was more than 10 years in the making, but when it came to uncovering the secrets of the molecular structure of enzymes, perseverance paid off. By studying and comparing the workhorse cellulose-degrading enzymes of two fungi, researchers from the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have pinpointed regions on these enzymes […]
In Illinois, researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign are using adding calcium to different corn byproducts and tweaking the solution’s pH in an effort to precipitate organic and inorganic phosphorus compounds in minutes. Doing so would not only create potential additional value using the phosphorus as fertilizer or as supplements for animal feed but […]
