Category: Research

Chempolis teams with ACRID on cellulosic ethanol in India

Chempolis teams with ACRID on cellulosic ethanol in India

December 17, 2015 |

In India, Chempolis has partnered Avantha Group’s research wing ACRID to produce cellulosic ethanol and other bio-based chemicals from feedstocks such as bagasse, cane trash, rice and wheat straw, corn stems, grasses, bamboo and clean sugar. Chempolis will supply its proprietary technology for the implementation of local projects. An increase of ethanol production is expected to […]

Read More

McGill University researchers develop method to produce biofuel from fish waste using HTC

McGill University researchers develop method to produce biofuel from fish waste using HTC

December 16, 2015 |

In Canada, researchers from McGill University have devised a strategy where seafood waste is pretreated by enzymatic hydrolysis for subsequent hydrothermal carbonization to produce hydrochar and biocrude liquor. Enzyme hydrolysis conditions including enzyme concentration, incubation time, and enzyme ratios were carefully optimized for maximal hydrolysis of seafood waste. By using an enzyme cocktail of Viscozyme, […]

Read More

DOE announces funding opportunity for algae biomass yield projects

DOE announces funding opportunity for algae biomass yield projects

December 15, 2015 |

In Washington, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) announced its intent to issue, on behalf of the Bioenergy Technologies Office, a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) entitled “Advancements in Algal Biomass Yield, Phase 2 (ABY2).” This FOA will support projects to develop technologies that are likely to succeed in […]

Read More

WSU researcher develop catalysts converting ethanol into isobutene

WSU researcher develop catalysts converting ethanol into isobutene

December 14, 2015 |

In Washington state, Washington State University researchers have developed a catalyst that easily converts bio-based ethanol to a widely used industrial chemical, paving the way for more environmentally friendly, bio-based plastics and products. The researchers have published a paper online describing the catalyst in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.5b07401) and have been […]

Read More

Global Markets and Technologies for Biofuel Enzymes report released

Global Markets and Technologies for Biofuel Enzymes report released

December 13, 2015 |

BCC Research has released Global Markets and Technologies for Biofuel Enzymes, which forecasts a five-year compound annual growth rate of 10.4% from 2015-2020, leading to a global market size of $1 billion in the end year. The report explores present and future strategies within the biofuel enzymes market, which includes amylase, cellulose, xylanase, lipase and […]

Read More

Texas A&M researcher leads $1.2 million DOE grant for biosensors

Texas A&M researcher leads $1.2 million DOE grant for biosensors

December 10, 2015 |

In Texas, Wayne Versaw, Associate Professor at Texas A&M University in College Station is the lead researcher in a $1.2 million grant from the Department of Energy to support the development of biosensors to track and measure the movement of phosphate from soil fungi into plant cells in real time. The biosensor system will provide […]

Read More

University of Massachusetts Amherst researcher gets NSF grant for shape-selective catalysis

University of Massachusetts Amherst researcher gets NSF grant for shape-selective catalysis

December 9, 2015 |

In Massachusetts, University of Massachusetts Amherst computational chemist Scott Auerbach has been awarded a three-year, $330,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to improve basic understanding and optimize the process of producing fuels such as gasoline from plant biomass instead of from petroleum. For more than 50 years, Auerbach explains, chemists and chemical engineers have […]

Read More

University of Illinois sees only limited extra demand for corn feedstock in 2016

University of Illinois sees only limited extra demand for corn feedstock in 2016

December 8, 2015 |

In Illinois, the University of Illinois has estimates from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), indicate that U.S. production of fuel ethanol totaled 14.313 billion gallons during the 2014 calendar year. That is 1.02 billion gallons more than produced in 2013 and about 384 million gallons more than the previous record production in 2011. For […]

Read More

UCLA and UC Berkeley say California has neglected biofuel opportunities

UCLA and UC Berkeley say California has neglected biofuel opportunities

December 7, 2015 |

In California, the state has not taken full advantage of opportunities to increase its in-state production of biofuel, despite state policies that encourage biofuel consumption, according to a report by the Climate Change and Business Research Initiative at the UCLA and UC Berkeley law schools. Coming on the heels of new Environmental Protection Agency rules […]

Read More

New method for producing Yeast hybrids may inspire new brews, biofuels: Wisconsin researchers

New method for producing Yeast hybrids may inspire new brews, biofuels: Wisconsin researchers

December 6, 2015 |

In Wisconsin, researchers have developed a new method for making interspecies yeast hybrids in the lab, making hybrids at rates of one in a thousand cells. The research team related its results in a special synthetic biology issue of the journal Fungal Genetics and Biology. “It is much more efficient than nature.” The new yeast […]

Read More