Tag Archives: biofuel
Researchers at Virginia Tech, led by Associate Professor Percival Zhang, have developed a process by which approximately 30% of the cellulose from any plant material (including agricultural waste) can be converted into a starch known as amylose. Amylose can be used in food or as biodegradable packaging. Cellulose and starch have the same chemical composiition – the difference being their chemical linkages. Professor Percival Zhang's team used an enzyme cascade to break up the bonds in cellulose, enabling their reconfiguration as the starch, amylose. Amylose s a good source of dietay fibre and has been shown to decrease the risk … Continue Reading
Researchers at the University of Georgia say that they have found a way to take the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and use it to make useful industrial products, potentially including liquid fuels. The process uses a unique microorganism called a "rushing fireball" (Pyrococcus furiosus) which thrives by feeding on carbohydrates in the super-heated ocean waters near geothermal vents. By manipulating this organism's genetic material, the researchers created a microorganism that is capable of living at much lower temperatures and feeds on carbon dioxide. The research team then used hydrogen gas to create a chemical reaction in the microorganism that … Continue Reading
British researchers have identified a genetic trait that causes willow trees to yield five times more biofuel if they grow diagonally, compared with those that are allowed to grow naturally up towards the sky. Scientists led by Dr Nicholas Brereton and Dr Michael Ray, both from the Imperial College London, found that when willows grow at an angle, such as when they are bent by strong winds, they produce high-energy sugar molecules in an attempt to strengthen their stems and straighten the plant upwards. These high-energy sugars can be fermented into biofuels when the trees are harvested, although the process … Continue Reading
A team of scientists at MIT have genetically altered a common soil bacteria called Ralstonia eutropha into producing biofuel and expelling biofuel into its growing medium instead of retaining it within its body. Normally, biofuel is extracted from bacteria by crushing it; the new process is analagous to milking. The biofuel, isobutanol, can be blended with, or substitured for, petrol without refining. Ordinarily, when their regular carbon food sources become scarce, R. eutropha respond by synthesizing a type of polymer, in which they store whatever carbon they are able to find. The team of MIT biologists were able to modify … Continue Reading
Seaweed would seem to an ideal source of biomass for making renewable fuels. Kelp has a high sugar content; it doesn’t need farmland or fresh water and large quantities can be sustainably harvested. Harvesting the kelp which is already growing along 3% of the world’s coastlines could potentially produce 60 billion gallons of ethanol. The problem with kelp is that its primary sugar, alginate, could not be broken down efficiently enough to produce biofuel on an industrial scale. Now, scientists from the Bio Architecture Laboratory in Berkeley, California, have genetically engineered a strain of E. coli bacteria capable of digesting … Continue Reading
Producers of biofuels made from terrestrial biomass crops have difficulty breaking down some fibres and extracting fermentable sugars. The harsh pretreatment processes needed to release the sugars result in toxic byproducts and inhibit subsequent microbial fermentation. On the other hand, marine biomass can be easily degraded to fermentable sugars and production rates and range of distribution are higher than terrestrial biomass. However, making biofuels from most seaweed has been problematic because the process yields both glucose and galactose and, until now, galactose fermentation has been very inefficient. Now Yong-Su Jin, a University of Illinois assistant professor of microbial genomics, and … Continue Reading
A report from the Energy Biosciences Institute in Berkeley projects that, while algal oil production technology has the potential to produce several billion gallons of renewable fuel annually, development of cost-competitive algae biofuel production will require much more long- term research, development and demonstration. In the meantime, several non-fuel applications of algae could serve to advance the nascent industry. The replort says that the industry is still in its early gestation stage. Although well over 100 companies are now working to produce algal biomass and oil for transportation fuels, most are small and none has yet operated a pilot plant … Continue Reading
Researchers from the UK Met Office have studied the benefits of various biofuel crops in models of the future global climate. They have found that the carbon that is released into the atmosphere from the loss of natural vegetation could be paid back by using miscanthus grass within 30 years.. Estimates for other biofuel crops, such as corn for ethanol, range from 167 to 420 years to pay back their carbon debt. According to John Hughes, UK Met Office Research Scientist, "Our study demonstrates the huge potential of energy crops, in particular of Miscanthus. Also, by scaling the results up … Continue Reading
Scientists at Arizona State University have reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science that they have genetically engineered bacteria to produce biofuel. Researchers Xinyao Liu and Roy Curtiss have engineered cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) that continuously secret the oil. The scientists started by producing cyanobacteria carrying the enzyme thioesterase, that clips the bonds that bind fatty acid to more complex carrier proteins. This allowed for oil to accumulate within the microbes, to the point where it can no longer be contained. They then modified two layers of the cyanobacteria’s cellular envelope so that the fatty acid could get … Continue Reading
British Airways has unveiled plans to establish what it believes will be Europe’s first ‘sustainable’ jet fuel plant The plant will produce aviation fuel from plasma gasification of biomass into BioSynGas which is then converted into jet fuel. The facility will process all types of biomass and residue feedstock which will mainly be sourced from local waste management facilities. The process produces no waste products other than an environmentally-benign slag that can be used as construction aggregate. It is planned that the plant will be fully operational by 2014 and, if successful, it will convert 500,000 tonnes of carbon-based material … Continue Reading
Videos
Renewables News- New Aussie Technology to Clean Polluted WaterScientists from Deakin University, together with French colleagues, say that they have manufactured a lightweight and reusable material that can absorb up to 33 times its weight in a wide range of spilt oils, chemical solvents and dyes, while repelling … Continue Reading → […]
- Aussie Researchers Make Efficient Solar Cells from Low-grade SiliconResearchers at the University of New South Wales have found a way to make very high efficiency solar cells out of cheap, low-grade silicon. It has been known for several decades that hydrogen atoms can be introduced into the atomic … Continue Reading → […]
- First Aussie “Hot Rocks” Power Plant Begins ProducingThe first power plant in Australia to produce electricity using an enhanced geothermal ("hot rocks") system has begun producing electricity in the far north-east of South Australia. The one-megawatt Habanero pilot plant near outback Innamincka is operated by Geodynamics. Geodynamics … Continue Reading → […]
- New Aussie Technology to Clean Polluted Water
