In Massachusetts, international research team led by Dan Distel, director of the Ocean Genome Legacy Center of New England Biolabs at Northeastern University, has discovered a novel digestive strategy in shipworms. The breakthrough, the researchers say, may also be a game-changer for the industrial production of clean biofuels. To start, it’s important to note that […]
In Indiana, researchers have demonstrated a new process to convert all biomass into liquid fuel, and the method could make possible mobile processing plants. The researchers at Purdue University filed a patent application on the concept in 2008 and have now demonstrated that it works in laboratory experiments, said Rakesh Agrawal, the Winthrop E. Stone […]
In Spain, by switching out methanol in the biodiesel production process and replacing it with ethanol, mixed with a heterogeneous catalyst, a PhD student at the University of Navarra has determined that the production process could become cheaper and have a better environmental impact than traditional methods.
In Brazil, researchers at the State University of West Paraná are looking at the viability of tilapia oil as a feedstock for biodiesel. The fish itself has about 22% oil content while fish waste has about 6% oil. Guts, fins, heads, skin, and scales are all waste products from fish processing but no oil was […]
In Texas, Agricen has announced a new webinar for Row Crop Growers. The “How to Unlock the Value of Your Residue When Every Dollar Counts” Webinar will discuss importance of nutrient release from residue for next season’s crop and product applications. The webinar will and will feature Dr. Laura Gentry of the Illinois Corn Growers […]
In Canada, Damien Biot-Pelletier, a Concordia PhD candidate in biology, is building on the findings of a previous Concordia grad student: Dominic Pinel, who produced a strain of yeast that is resistant to sulfite liquor—the toxic byproduct of the pulp and paper industry—and transforms its sugars into ethanol. Biot-Pelletier is now trying to discover what […]
In Colorado, tucked away in darkness and almost dead, algae can emerge from a frigid and foggy environment to live again—and perhaps even become the seeds for a new beginning that can provide biofuel for a clean energy future. At the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and at dozens of other labs nationwide, algae […]
In New York state, patents for biofuels and biomass provided by the US Patent Trade Office reached an all time high 71 during Q2 of 2014, four more than the previous high seen during Q4 in 2013 and nearly 20 more than the previous quarter, according to the Clean Energy Patent Growth Index (CEPGI), published […]
In Nature Climate Change, a recent study performed at the University of Nebraska that cast doubt on whether biofuels produced from corn residue could meet the federal mandate for cellulosic ethanol has garnered criticism also published in the same journal. The criticism notes that the model ignored some of the carbon benefits associated with cellulosic […]
In North Carolina, researchers are using biotechnology to chip away at barriers to producing biofuels from woody plants and grasses instead of the corn and sugarcane used to make ethanol. NC State’s Forest Biotechnology Group, which has been responsible for several research milestones published this year, summed up biofuel research progress and challenges for a […]
