In Spain, the EU-funded project ‘Biodiesel production from microalgae’ (ALGFUEL) investigated new species and processes for the production of next-generation biofuels. The project aimed to identify promising new candidates for biofuel production, and to improve the understanding of microalgal triglyceride production at pilot scale. Another aspect of the project involved the development of mathematical and […]
In Spain, the University of Pais Vasco’s chemical engineering department is looking for new ways to develop acetols found in wine that can help boost biodiesel production. The alcohols can be produced from glycerol, adding a new use for the biodiesel byproduct. Though laboratory tests have so far been promising, the new challenge is to […]
In Israel, Evogene announced a three year extension of its research collaboration with Syngenta Biotechnology, Inc. The collaboration was established in mid-2009 to identify plant genes providing resistance to Soybean Cyst Nematode. The three year collaboration extension follows successful results obtained by Syngenta for candidate genes provided by Evogene as part of the original collaboration. […]
In Minnesota, Michael Ceballos’s research team has been awarded an NSF Innovation Corps Team Program grant to research commercialization of enzyme platforms for biofuels at the industrial scale. The lab has a partnership with Energetix and DENCO II, allowing implementation and full testing capability for the company. The work is a spinoff of the work […]
In the UK, an analysis, by a cross-departmental team of scientists, engineers and economists at Imperial College London, considers the technologies required, and associated energy system costs, of limiting global energy-related CO2 emissions to about 15 Gt in 2050. The analysis uses models representing the electricity, transport, buildings and industry sectors of each of ten […]
In Ireland, the University of Limerick is leading an EU-funded project called DEMA (‘Direct Ethanol from MicroAlgae’) aiming to produce biofuels from cyanobacteria for just 53 cents per liter. The project will use metabolic engineering so that the algae secrete ethanol directly, and then will filter it through a membrane. The project was launched last […]
In the Netherlands, introducing four genes from bacteria and spinach has enabled researchers at the Delft University of Technology to improve the production of bioethanol with yeast by using carbon dioxide. Their findings were published last week in the Biotechnology for Biofuels journal.
In Ohio, University of Cincinnati researchers are looking into using waste coffee grounds as a biofuel feedstock. These waste coffee grounds could be used to purify crude biodiesel derived from coffee oils. While the grounds are ideal because they eliminate usage of edible oils and reduce the cost of the feedstocks, but are difficult to […]
In Indiana, the American Chemical Society held a conference this week in Indianapolis focused on the health aspects of biofuel production and use. Research papers presented included topics such as new evidence that emissions from biodiesel vehicles are less mutagenic than those from petroleum-based diesel, research on the toxicity of conventional diesel and traditional diesel, […]
In Ohio, researchers from the University of Cincinnati have developed a method to produce biodiesel from the oils extracted from used coffee grounds. After the extraction process, the coffee grounds are again dried and used to filter the biodiesel produced from its own oils. Future research will focus on improving the efficiency of the filtering […]
