In Australia, a researcher from Queensland University of Technology is working to develop technology to turn sugarcane bagasse into aviation and other fuels under a $4.5 million grant from the Federal Government. The target market is the US Navy who is seeking biofuel filling stations in Australia to supply its green fleet. Already Queenland ports […]
In France, Global Bioenergies reports that they have produced isobutene by fermentation based exclusively on xylose as a feedstock. Performances using xylose were similar to those obtained when running the process on wheat-derived glucose or sugar beet-derived sucrose, the company said. The production strain’s central metabolism was remodeled using an innovative synthetic biology approach. An […]
In Australia, The solid waste left over from wine-making could make a competitive biofuel, University of Adelaide researchers have found. Published in the journal Bioresource Technology, the researchers showed that up to 400 litres of bioethanol could be produced by fermentation of a tonne of grape marc (the leftover skins, stalks and seeds from wine-making). Global […]
In India, researchers from the Institute of Wood Science & Technology under Indian Council of Forestry Research & Education of found that pongamia trees that are being promoted as a biodiesel feedstock are susceptible to infestations of the gall midge. The midge lays its eggs in the pongamia flowers and over time destroys the flowers […]
In Switzerland, researchers from EPFL show agricultural residues from Brazilian oil palm plantations, can be used to produce bioethanol and two additional end products: furfural, a much-used industrial compound, and lignin, a solid fuel that can be used in the biorefinery. For this particular study, they characterized the composition of the empty fruit bunches and […]
In Kansas, a Kansas State University biochemistry professor has reached a milestone in building a better biofuel: producing high levels of lipids with modified properties in oil seeds. Timothy Durrett, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, and collaborators at Michigan State University and the University of Nebraska, Lincoln have modified Camelina sativa and produced the […]
Scientists from the University of Maryland will report in the Journal of Theoretical Biology that they have isolated several different strains of bacteria that make high concentrations of biofuels from cellulosic biomass or from carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas. The authors isolated bacteria that make high concentrations of alcohols including ethanol and 1-butanol, and other […]
In Florida, a researcher now at the University of Central Florida has developed a new method for identifying materials’ unique chemical “fingerprints” and mapping their chemical properties at a much higher spatial resolution than ever before. It’s a discovery that could have promising implications for fields as varied as biofuel production, solar energy, opto-electronic devices, pharmaceuticals […]
In Belgium, a new report from Insight Energy says that in the absence of action, emissions from EU-28 aviation will grow from 151 Mt of CO2 to 405 Mt in 2050. This represents a 167% increase on 2005 levels. Results indicate that for a ‘Hitting the Target’ scenario, where emissions are reduced to 50% below […]
In the UK, using bigger building blocks, scientists have shown they can make much longer oligosaccharide sequences than previously possible. The traditional synthetic route to long chain oligosaccharides is drawn out and complicated; they require numerous steps to produce the precursor tetrasaccharides, then further steps to connect these precursors into long chains. Normally they’re made by […]
