JBEI to partner with Russian Institute on biofuels research

R&D Magazine
Thursday, June 16, 2011

As part of a joint action plan to enhance cooperation between the United States and Russia in the energy sphere, which was signed on June 9, 2011 by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu during an official visit to Russia, DOE's Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) will partner with Moscow's Kurchatov Institute to evaluate the potential of unique ceramic membrane separators as an economic means of recovering advanced biofuels. Under the plan, JBEI will provide samples of fuels made from biomass using microbes, and the Kurchatov Institute will provide and test the membranes.

"In this project with the Kurchatov Institute, we are basically trying to eliminate the need for distillation and extensive chemical separations to recover biofuel from culture media," says Blake Simmons, JBEI's vice president for deconstruction, and the co-principal investigator, along with Jay Keasling, for JBEI on this project. "The ceramic membranes will be evaluated in terms of their biofuel recovery efficiencies. Ultimately, the goal is to develop a cost-effective and energy-efficient means of producing biofuels on a commercial scale by advancing biofuel membrane separation technology."

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