MSU SCIENTISTS RESEARCHING HUNGRY MICROBES THAT EAT NUCLEAR WASTE & PRODUCE BIOFUELS

Waste Management World


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Report: glycerol market expected to reach $2.1 billion in 2018

Biodiesel Magazine
By Transparency Market Research
March 14, 2013

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Australians develop glycerol-based biomass pretreatment process

Biomass Magazine

By Sue Retka Schill
November 26, 2012

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Leaf Energy Limited : Novel pretreatment for Cellulosic Bio-Ethanol production

4-traders.com
11/15/2012
07:51pm US/Eastern

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APSU Professor and Students Author Paper on Biofuel Research

Austin Peay State University
2/14/2011

As the demand for biodiesel fuel increases across the globe - it is predicted to reach 12 billion liters this year – a previously unforeseen complication has arisen in the production process. Glycerol, a colorless, odorless liquid, is generated as a byproduct of biodiesel production, and the sheer quantity that is created affects the economic viability of this industry. What should producers do with those billions of unneeded liters of glycerol?

Dr. Sergi Markov, associate professor of biology at Austin Peay State University, has an idea that could help push the alternative fuel race to new levels of possibility. For the last several years, Markov and two of his APSU students – Jared Averitt and Barbara Waldron – have studied the effects of the bacterium Enterobacter aerogenes on glycerol. Turns out, the bacteria converts the liquid into another biofuel, molecular hydrogen.

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Bugs Might Convert Biodiesel Waste Into New Fuel

Newswise
Released: 1/24/2011 7:00 AM EST
Source: University of Alabama Huntsville

Newswise — A strain of bacteria found in soil is being studied for its ability to convert waste from a promising alternative fuel into several useful materials, including another alternative fuel.

A graduate student at The University of Alabama in Huntsville is developing biological tools to make products from crude glycerol -- a waste material from the production of biodiesel. The research is being funded by the National Science Foundation.

Disposing of glycerol has been a problem for the biodiesel industry, according to Keerthi Venkataramanan, a student in UAHuntsville's biotechnology Ph.D. program. "Many companies have had problems disposing of it. The glycerol you get as a byproduct isn't pure, so it can't be used in cosmetics or animal feeds. And purifying it costs three times as much as the glycerol is worth."

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University of Alabama Huntsville Graduate Student Studies Bacterium...

Biofuels Journal
Date Posted: January 24, 2011

...for Potential to Convert Biodiesel Byproduct Glycerol to Fuels and Chemicals

Huntsville, AL—A strain of bacteria found in soil is being studied for its ability to convert waste from a promising alternative fuel into several useful materials, including another alternative fuel.

A graduate student at The University of Alabama in Huntsville is developing biological tools to make products from crude glycerol -- a waste material from the production of biodiesel.

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Applying science to chicken feed

BBC News
Page last updated at 16:19 GMT, Monday, 2 November 2009
By Martin Cassidy Rural affairs correspondent

The scientists say chickens find the feed appetising

Northern Ireland scientists have developed a new type of "high energy" chicken feed which uses the principal by-product of biodiesel production.

Biodiesel is diesel fuel made using vegetable oil or animal fat.

Its main by-product is glycerol - a thick oily substance rich in carbohydrates which is already used as a solvent and sweetener in several foods and drinks.

After carrying out a series of trials, scientists at Northern Ireland's Agri Food Biosciences Institute conclude that glycerol from biodiesel production has proved itself a more than useful chicken feed.
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URI students build microbial fuel cell to generate electricity, reuse waste from biodiesel process

University of Rhode Island
Media Contact: Todd McLeish, 401-874-2116

KINGSTON, R.I. – September 14, 2009 – Two University of Rhode Island students spent the summer building a unique fuel cell that uses bacteria and the waste stream from the production of biodiesel to generate renewable energy.

Chemical engineering students Sarah Hanselman of Bangor, Maine, and Patricia Coutts of Hyde Park, N.Y., collaborated with Professor Stanley Barnett to develop this new form of green energy.

According to the students, there is a growing need to convert the waste stream from the process of making biodiesel – 90 percent of which is glycerol – into other valuable products. So they built a small fuel cell using the biodiesel waste products as the fuel. When they added bacteria to the biodiesel waste, the microorganism oxidized the fuel through an electrode to generate electricity.

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Plastics From Biomass? Inexpensive Method For Removing Oxygen From Biomass Discovered

ScienceDaily

ScienceDaily (June 16, 2009) — In revisiting a chemical reaction that’s been in the literature for several decades and adding a new wrinkle of their own, researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have discovered a mild and relatively inexpensive procedure for removing oxygen from biomass. This procedure, if it can be effectively industrialized, could allow many of today’s petrochemical products, including plastics, to instead be made from biomass.

“We’ve found and optimized a selective, one-pot deoxygenation technique based on a formic acid treatment,” said Robert Bergman, a co-principal investigator on this project who holds a joint appointment with Berkeley Lab’s Chemical Sciences Division and the UC Berkeley Chemistry Department.

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Ofgem issues decision on ROCs for biodiesel

Biodiesel Magazine April 2009
By Erin Voegele
Web exclusive posted March 24, 2009, at 5:22 p.m. CST

Great Britain’s Office of the Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) recently issued its decision regarding whether or not electricity generated through the use of biodiesel or glycerin will eligible for Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROC) under the Renewables Obligation.

According to a decision document published by Ofgem in March, titled “Biodiesel, glycerol and the Renewables Obligation,” electricity generated through the use of biodiesel that was manufactured using fossil fuel-based methanol will not be eligible for ROCs. However, ROCs may be issued for electricity generated from biodiesel manufactured with biomass-derived methanol or ethanol.

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KOREAN TEAM EXTRACTS USEFUL CHEMICALS FROM BIODIESEL BY-PRODUCTS

TradingMarkets.com
Wed. January 07, 2009; Posted: 04:02 AM

SEOUL, Jan 07, 2009 (AsiaPulse via COMTEX) -- South Korean scientists have developed a high-tech process to extract commercially viable chemical compounds from a biodiesel by-product that can help cut costs of making the synthetic fuel, the government said Wednesday.

The Ministry of Knowledge Economy said researchers from local universities, the state-run Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology and GS Caltex Corp. have successfully made glycerol carbonate (GC) and 3-hydroxypropionic acid (3-HP) from glycerol.
"Using a special catalyst to make the chemicals, scientists have found a way to effectively reduce biodiesel production costs by 15 percent," a government official said. He said production cost can be lowered as manufacturers will be able to sell the by-product chemicals on the market.

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Biodiesel Byproduct May Be Used As Value-Added Ag Commodity

CattleNetwork.com
12/11/2008 7:50:00 AM

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A byproduct of biodiesel may be used to support the production of an animal feed additive to enhance the performance and growth of dairy cattle.

Ohio State University Department of Animal Science researchers have received a $38,733 one-year grant from the Ohio Soybean Council to use crude glycerol to grow yeast -- a common feed supplement in dairy cattle diets. The researchers are evaluating whether or not glycerol can effectively be used to grow yeast and how that yeast stacks up to commercial varieties in quality and in price.

"The idea behind the project is to take what is considered a waste product and turn it into a value-added agricultural commodity," said Zhongtang Yu, a microbiologist with the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center and principal investigator of the project.

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Researcher converts biodiesel-waste glycerol into omega-3 fatty acids

PHYSORG.com

The typical American diet often lacks omega-3 fatty acids despite clinical research that shows their potential human health benefits. Zhiyou Wen, assistant professor of biological systems engineering in Virginia Tech's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, found a way to grow these compounds using a byproduct of the emerging biodiesel industry.

"High energy prices have led to an increase in biodiesel production, which in turn has led to an increase in the amount of crude glycerol in the market," said Wen, who explained that biodiesel plants leave behind approximately 10 percent crude glycerol during the production process.

This has led the price of glycerol, a chemical compound widely used in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries, to drop in recent years. The rise in biodiesel production over the last decade means that the market can no longer absorb all the extra glycerol. Biodiesel producers must find alternative means for disposing of crude glycerol, which is prohibitively expensive to purify for industry use. Wen and his colleagues have developed a novel fermentation process using microalgae to produce omega-3 fatty acids from crude glycerol.

"We have shown that it is possible to use the crude glycerol byproduct from the biodiesel industry as a carbon source for microalgae that produce omega-3 fatty acids," said Wen, who added that the impurities in crude glycerol may actually be beneficial to algal growth. "After thorough chemical analysis, we have also shown that the algae biomass composition has the same quality as the commercial algae product."

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