In Washington, D.C., the U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) funds R&D of technologies necessary for deployment and production of cost-competitive bioenergy, primarily biofuels, and they just published the latest report with a status of those R&D efforts at the end of 2020 and the technical challenges and barriers facing the industry. This […]
In Sweden, international research team led by researchers of Stockholm University has for the first time been able to study the surface of a copper-zinc catalyst when carbon dioxide is reduced to methanol. The results – obtained at DESY´s brilliant light source PETRA III – are published in the scientific journal Science. A better knowledge […]
In Australia, in a bid to replace the harmful chemicals used in durable water repellent (DWR) textile coatings, a new research collaboration is developing a sustainable alternative made from biopolymers. The Innovative Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre (IMCRC) has granted New Zealand based biotechnology research company, Humble Bee Bio, and Deakin University A$70,000 to develop and […]
In the UK, an important stage on the long voyage to marine transport decarbonization was reached recently when Green Fuels Research (GFR), a pioneer in renewable fuels, successfully demonstrated use of unblended sustainable marine fuel (SMF) at Eglwys Nunydd Reservoir near Port Talbot, South Wales. The fuel was used in a Beta Marine B14 engine […]
In California, genes contain all the instructions an organism needs to live, grow, and reproduce. But identifying a gene and learning what it does are two different things. Scientists don’t know what kinds of instructions many genes contain— their functions are unknown. A new study led by UC Riverside, Princeton University, and Stanford University has […]
In Washington, D.C., research commissioned by the Diesel Technology Forum shows that for the first time, more than half (about 53%) of all diesel commercial vehicles on the road in the U.S. are advanced diesel technology models and are capable of running on low-carbon renewable biofuels. The data examines the number of 2010+ model year […]
In Washington state, experimental plant-based jet fuel could increase engine performance and efficiency, while dispensing with aromatics, the pollution-causing compounds found in conventional fuels, according to new research. In a study published in the journal Fuel, researchers analyzed a Washington State University-developed jet fuel based on lignin, an organic polymer that makes plants tough and […]
In Japan, one common hazard when dealing with liquid fuels is that they can evaporate quickly if given space, producing clouds of highly flammable gases. As one might expect, this can lead to catastrophic explosions or fire accidents. To tackle this problem, researchers have considered the use of gelled fuels, or fuels turned into thick […]
In Texas, an enzyme variant created by engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin can break down environment-throttling plastics that typically take centuries to degrade in just a matter of hours to days. This discovery, published in Nature, could help solve one of the world’s most pressing environmental problems: what to do […]
In Washington, a team led by current and former Carnegie plant biologists has undertaken the largest ever functional genomic study of a photosynthetic organism. Their work, published in Nature Genetics, could inform strategies for improving agricultural yields and mitigating climate change. Despite its fundamental importance, many of the genes associated with photosynthesis remain uncharacterized. Luckily, […]
