In Illinois, a semiautonomous robot may soon be roaming agricultural fields gathering and transmitting real-time data about the growth and development of crops, information that crop breeders—and eventually farmers—can use to identify the genetic traits in plants likely to produce the greatest yields. A team of scientists from the Carle R. Woese Institute for Genomic […]
In Japan, scientists from Tokyo Institute of Technology lead by Professor Hiroyuki Ohta have made breakthroughs in understanding the mechanisms underlying microalgae’s oleaginous trait by investigating lipid metabolism in Nannochloropsis oceanica. TAGs are synthesized in the extraplastidic Kennedy pathway through sequential addition of three fatty acyl moieties to the glycerol backbone. Among the participating enzymes, […]
In Minnesota, a team of scientists from the University of Minnesota; the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory; the University of Wisconsin, Madison; Gyeongsangnam-do Agricultural Research and Extension Services, Republic of Korea; and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found evidence that brown rot fungi separate the oxidants and enzymes in time rather than in space. The team discovered […]
In Iowa, Iowa State University is reporting that it will bring its expertise in biorenewable technologies and pilot plant operations to the country’s 10th Manufacturing USA Institute. The recently announced advanced manufacturing institute is dedicated to improving the productivity and efficiency of chemical manufacturing, and could save the chemical industry more than $9 billion annually, […]
In New Jersey, to improve bioreactor efficiency, researchers at Princeton University will create an integrated approach to monitoring and controlling the organisms’ metabolic activity thanks to support from the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Transformative Technology Fund. Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google parent company Alphabet Inc., and his wife, Wendy, created the $25 million endowment […]
In Washington, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announced the launch of its Chemical Catalysis for Bioenergy Consortium (ChemCatBio), a research and development consortium dedicated to identifying and overcoming catalysis challenges for biomass conversion processes. Made up of seven DOE national laboratories, ChemCatBio will bring new catalytic materials to commercial bioenergy […]
In Pennsylvania, a Penn State professor was hired by World Agroforestry Centre to help a small company, Eco Fuels Kenya, or EFK, to survey subsistence farmers in five counties and dozens of villages in Kenya about their willingness to grow croton trees. He asked them such things as how many trees they have, whether they […]
In India, IIT-Kharagpur researchers have developed a process that results in four-fold increase in the yield of fermentable sugars and bioethanol from hemicelluloses, allowing feedstocks like grasses and lake hyacinth to finally become viable feedstocks. Lake hyacinth is 50% hemicellulose, for example, so a kilo of dry feedstock can now produce 0.18-0.29kg of ethanol. Research […]
In California, farmers from the Midwest are in California’s Central Valley touring the first-of-its-kind Zero Net Energy Farm, or “ZNEF,” to learn how to generate all electrical and heating power needs from on-site renewable resources, including solar, wind and biomass. Renewable energy company Biodico Inc. directs the ZNEF project, which is funded, in part, by […]
In Puerto Rico, a new study published last week in the journal Environmental Research Letters by researchers at the University of Puerto Rico offers the first regional look at lands being converted to palm oil plantations in Latin America. Palm oil is a primary ingredient in processed foods, soaps, cosmetics, and biofuel. Growth of the […]
