Category: Research

Evolva scientists say diterpenoids are now commercially relevant targets for food ingredients, pharmaceuticals, and fragrances

March 13, 2016 | Jim Lane

In Switzerland, Evolva scientists, collaborating with researchers at the Plant Biochemistry Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, published the paper “Expanding the Landscape of Diterpene Structural Diversity through Stereochemically Controlled Combinatorial Biosynthesis”, in the International Edition of Angewandte Chemie, Plant-derived diterpenoids are used extensively in food ingredients, pharmaceuticals, and fragrances. Conventional wisdom holds that they are too […]

NatureWorks to construct 8300 sq ft lab to support methane-to-biopolymer project

March 13, 2016 | Jim Lane

In Minnesota, NatureWorks will construct a new, $1 million, 8,300 square-foot laboratory to commercialize a fermentation process for transforming methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into lactic acid, the building block of Ingeo biopolymer. NatureWorks is hiring six scientists to staff the new facility. The methane to lactic acid research project began in 2013 as a […]

University of Florida researchers may have found key to algae fuel conversion

March 10, 2016 | Meghan Sapp

In Florida, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researchers may have found a key to converting algae to fuel. The scientists have found what researchers call a “transcription factor,” called ROC40. Bala Rathinasabapathi, a UF/IFAS professor of horticultural sciences, likened a transcription factor’s role in controlling the expression of many genes inside […]

Penn State harvests willow shrubs for biomaterials research

March 9, 2016 | Meghan Sapp

In Pennsylvania, the first harvest of 34 acres of fast-growing shrub willow from a Penn State demonstration field this winter is a milestone in developing a sustainable biomass supply for renewable energy and bio-based economic development, according to researchers in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. The shrub willow plantation is part of a broader […]

University of Virginia researcher says biofuel creating land competition for food

March 8, 2016 | Meghan Sapp

In Virginia, a researcher at the University of Virginia has said that as strategies for energy security, investment opportunities and energy policies prompt ever-growing production and consumption of biofuels like bioethanol and biodiesel, land and water that could otherwise be used for food production increasingly are used to produce crops for fuel. About 4 percent […]

MIT researchers make waste gas-to-liquid fuel technology breakthrough

March 7, 2016 | Meghan Sapp

In China, researchers from MIT looked at gaseous substrates that could be made available at low cost and sufficiently large scale for industrial fuel production using a new bioconversion scheme that effectively converts syngas, generated from gasification of coal, natural gas, or biomass, into lipids that can be used for biodiesel production. The integrated conversion […]

Biodiesel’s outstanding record on greenhouse gas emissions is reducing renewable fuels demand: UFOP

March 6, 2016 | Jim Lane

In Germany, UFOP says that despite record consumption of around 37 million tons of diesel fuel, in 2015, biodiesel sales fell by 0.165 million tons compared with 2014. The admixture proportion of biodiesel fell by 6.5 percent in 2014 to 5.8 percent, according to information provided by the German Federal Office for Economic Affairs and […]

University of Tennessee AgResearch Center harvests poplars for biomass trials

March 3, 2016 | Meghan Sapp

In Tennessee, a small stand of poplar trees harvested from a University of Tennessee AgResearch Center is set to help scientists progress further down the path toward low-cost, high-quality biomass and a bioeconomy. Located on UT’s East Tennessee AgResearch Center in Blount County, the 10-acre plot of hybrid poplars was planted just over four years […]

International research team make enzyme breakthrough

March 2, 2016 | Meghan Sapp

In the UK, Scientists at the University of York are part of an international research team that has made a significant step forward in understanding the processes naturally occurring enzymes use to degrade microbe-resistant biomass, a key aim in the development of biofuels. The research is part of ongoing study of a recently discovered family of […]

Researchers develop high-speed UCOME conversion method

March 1, 2016 | Meghan Sapp

In Iran, scientists at the Petroleum University of Technology in Ahwaz have developed a high-speed conversion that turns waste cooking oil into fuel using ultrasound and caustic soda. Details are reported in the International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology. The team has demonstrated that biodiesel can be quickly produced from waste cooking oil […]

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