Microwave-Burnt Biomass Could Help “Black” Energy Industry Become Cleaner

The Green Optimist
Posted by Ovidiu Sandru on February 19, 2011

James Clark, the director of the University of York’s Green Center of Excellence, will present some of the newest chemical technologies that could help producing clean biofuels and at the same time eliminate waste, at the Annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

“We have shown that wax products with numerous applications, can be extracted from crop and other by-products including wheat and barley straws, timber residues and grasses, using supercritical carbon dioxide – a green chemical technology that allows the production of products with no solvent residues,” he says.

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The Biorefinery Project of the Future – Part 3 of 10 – adding renewable chemicals production

Biofuels Digest
September 24, 2010 Jim Lane

If we have learned anything from the stories of hot companies like Amyris, LS9, Gevo, Solazyme, ZeaChem, Algenol, or Cobalt Technologies, as well as exciting pure-plays like Segetis, Elevance, GlycosBio or Rivertop Renewables, it is the importance of producing chemicals or other bio-based materials first to generate revenues, before taking the company further down the cost curve and up in scale in order to make competitively-priced renewable fuels.

Not every company is going down this route. Among the most prominent of the pure-play fuel companies are groups like Sapphire Energy and Butamax, while companies such as POET have developed strong markets in bio-based products such as their Dakota Gold distillers grains without yet venturing into exotic plastics or chemicals.

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Brazil Opens Pioneering Factory Producing Eco-friendly Plastic

Manila Bulletin Publishing Company
September 26, 2010, 12:30am

TRIUNFO, Brazil (Xinhua) - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says a pioneering factory in southern Brazil that produces "green" plastic clearly shows the value of sugarcane-based ethanol.

"It demonstrates to the world that ethanol can find an important place even in sectors that once depended solely on oil," the president said Friday during the opening of the factory.

"I am sure this does not happen by chance, but because Brazil has learned how to reconcile natural soil wealth and climate with heavy investment in research and technology," he said.

The factory has a capacity to produce 200,000 tons of "green" polyethylene a year and will consume about 462 million liters of ethanol per year.

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Iowa State chemists discover method to create high-value chemicals from biomass

ScienceBlog
by bjs on 02. Sep, 2010 in Blog Entry

AMES, Iowa — Iowa State University researchers have found a way to produce high-value chemicals such as ethylene glycol and propylene glycol from biomass rather than petroleum sources.

Walter Trahanovsky, an Iowa State professor of chemistry who likes to write out the chemical structures of compounds when he talks about his science, was looking to produce sugar derivatives from cellulose and other forms of biomass using high-temperature chemistry. And so he and members of his research group studied the reactions of cellulosic materials in alcohols at high temperatures and pressures.

They analyzed the products of the reactions using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Early experiments produced the expected sugar derivatives. Additional work, however, clearly revealed significant yields of ethylene glycol and propylene glycol.

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CSI Says New Pretreatment Technology for Cellulosic Biomass Could Reduce Enzyme Dosage By Up To a Factor of 10

favStocks.com
By Green Car Congress on 03/26/2010 – 10:25 am

Researchers at Cellulose Sciences International (CSI) have developed a pretreatment technology of cellulosic biomass to reduce its recalcitrance (resistance to breakdown into sugars), enabling possible significant increases in rates of conversion of celluloses to sugar by cellulase enzymes, with an accompanying decrease in the required dosage of the enzymes. This, in turn, could lower the production cost of cellulosic biofuels and chemicals.

In a presentation of the work at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Dr. Rajai Atalla, founder of the company, said that CSI has achieved conversions on the order of 80% in approximately 20 hours for bleached kraft pulps; conversion of a control was 45%. For corn stover, they have achieved conversion rates that are twice those of controls, Atalla said.

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Researchers, economic development experts excited about potential for plant

KnoxvilleBiz.com (Knoxville, TN)
By Larisa Brass
Posted January 23, 2010 at 10:48 p.m.

At the University of Tennessee, Joe Bozell is seeking ways to make high-value chemicals used in everything from auto parts to nanotechnology from a humble blade of grass.

Switchgrass, which has received lots of attention as a source of biofuel, will become the ultimate feedstock for a biorefinery built by the state in partnership with Dupont Danisco. The demonstration plant, which initially will produce ethanol from corn cobs, started production late last year and will hold its grand opening on Friday.

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DOE and USDA Select Projects for More Than $24 Million in Biomass Research and Development Grants

USDA, NIFA

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12, 2009 - The U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy today announced projects selected for more than $24 million in grants to research and develop technologies to produce biofuels, bioenergy and high-value biobased products. Of the $24.4 million announced today, DOE plans to invest up to $4.9 million with USDA contributing up to $19.5 million. Advanced biofuels produced through this funding are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent.

"The selected projects will help make bioenergy production from renewable resources more efficient, cost-effective and sustainable," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "These advancements will benefit rural economies through creation of new processing plants and profitable crops for U.S. farmers and foresters."

"Innovation is crucial to the advancement of alternative, renewable energy sources, and these awards will spur the research needed to make significant progress in bioenergy development," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

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Chemical Solution

The Wall Street Journal Business
OCTOBER 19, 2009
By ANA CAMPOY

With demand for fuel falling, ethanol plants look for other products to sell.

Can green chemicals save the ethanol industry?

Ethanol producers, who focused on transforming corn into transportation fuel, got whipsawed by skyrocketing corn prices and collapsing demand as consumers cut back on driving.

Now a group of biotechnology and chemical companies is proposing a different model: using the existing ethanol infrastructure to make higher-margin chemicals.

Worries about global warming and government efforts to make chemicals more environmentally friendly are pushing the industry to find alternatives to the building-block materials they make mostly out of oil and natural gas. Ethanol itself, and other chemicals that can be brewed at ethanol plants, are emerging as viable options.

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