In Colorado, here’s the future of ethylene production as Dr. Jianping Yu sees it. “We envision some farms in the field that cover many acres. We will have cyanobacteria harvesting sunlight and C02 and then produce ethylene or ethylene derivatives,” said Yu, a research scientist in the Photobiology Group at the Energy Department’s National Renewable […]
In Tennessee, biorefineries could benefit from a new process developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory that produces hydrogen from plant sources such as switchgrass. The method converts biomass waste streams into hydrogen through heating and processing in microbe-based electrochemical cells. This approach reduces the use of natural gas during biofuel production, which could help biorefineries […]
The global economic engine known as China will creak to a halt, tossing a big question mark into global economic growth, without energy diversification away from fossil energy, especially coal, according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA). The study, published in the journal Technological Forecasting and Social Change, looks at the […]
In Germany, researchers reported on the deeply sequenced metagenome and metatranscriptome of a complex biogas-producing microbial community from an agricultural production-scale biogas plant located in North Rhine Westphalia. “We assembled the metagenome and, as an example application, show that we reconstructed most genes involved in the methane metabolism, a key pathway involving methanogenesis performed by […]
In Washington state, researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have found that with the addition of a single gene, rice can be cultivated to emit virtually no methane from its paddies during growth. With the change, it also packs much more of the plant’s desired properties, such as starch for a richer food source […]
In the UK, Aston University researchers are taking their prototype, portable Pyrofab technology on a summer tour to evaluate sustainable sources of bioenergy from waste across north-west Europe. The Pyrofab is based on Pyroformer technology, developed in the UK by the European Bioenergy Research Institute (EBRI) at Aston University. The Pyrofab converts carbon from organic […]
In Colorado, a team of resaerchers led by Douglas R. Kauffman and including Jay Thakkar, Rajan Siva, Christopher Matranga, Paul Ohodnicki, Chenjie Zeng, and Rongchao Jin, writing in ACS, focused in on the production of industrially-relevant chemicals from CO2, using renewable energy inputs. “We utilize Au25 nanoclusters as renewably powered CO2 conversion electrocatalysts with CO2 […]
In Ontario, Bioindustrial Innovation Canada has completed phase 1 of a project to assess the economic viability of the agricultural biomass to cellulosic sugar value chain in Canada. The Cellulosic Sugar Production Project is designed to evaluate, develop and physically validate agricultural biomass to sugars and co-products conversion technologies for commercial scale-up application. Currently in […]
In California, students at the University of California Santa Cruz are crowdfunding their summer research project that is looking to boost biofuel yields through manipulation and use of organisms to break down cellulose from MSW in hopes of making production more economically viable. Funds will also go towards sharing the results at an international synthetic […]
In Illinois, scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are designing ways to improve—and hopefully optimize—land use. In collaboration with the farming community of the Indian Creek Watershed in central Illinois, these researchers are finding ways to simultaneously meet three objectives: maximize a farmer’s production, grow feedstock for bioenergy and protect the […]
