Shell India Markets, the Indian arm of Royal Dutch Shell, has plans to build a biofuel demonstration plant using IH2 technology in Bangalore, India.

IH2 technology is a continuous catalytic thermo-chemical process which converts a broad range of forestry or agricultural residues and municipal wastes directly into renewable transportation fuels and blend stocks. As the IH2 technology converts a wide range of residual biomass, the facility in Bangalore will be designed to allow variation in feedstock.

According to Shell India, highly relevant commercial feedstock, such as residual woody biomass and agricultural and municipal residues, will be within the intended feed scope.

Z Energy, a New Zealand energy producer, has moved towards completing New Zealand's first commercial scale biodiesel plant in Wiri, Auckland, with the development of a biodiesel distillation column.

The plant will turn inedible tallow, a by-product of the New Zealand meat industry, into biodiesel with the potential to scale production up. Z Energy says the biodiesel distillation column is a sophisticated piece of kit which will ensure a highly refined, pure finished biodiesel.

Fuel burned for transportation makes up around 17% of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions. According to David Binnie, Z's general manager of supply and distribution, it will take time, but the investment is a step towards reducing New Zealand's reliance on fossil fuels.

The biodiesel will be available to customers towards the middle of 2016.

By inserting a modified enzyme inside a virus, researchers, led by Trevor Douglas from Indiana University, have created a new biomaterial capable of catalyzing the production of hydrogen. The bacteriophage P22, a bacterial virus, could lead to more efficient and profitable biofuel production processes.

Researchers created the modified enzyme by extracting two genes, hyaA and hyaB, from Escherichia coli which encode subunits of the hydrogenase enzyme. Once inside the capsid, the protective protein shell of a virus, the bacteriophage P22 is born. Inside the capsid, the hydrogen-producing enzyme is 150 times more efficient than an unaltered enzyme.

Researchers have previously tried to use the enzyme to produce biofuels, but in its unaltered form it is overly sensitive to heat and outside chemicals. The enzyme becomes resilient once inside the virus shell.

Clostridium pasteurianum can produce butanol from glycerol, a waste product of biodiesel production. Nicholas R. Sandoval and his colleagues from the University of Delaware in the United States aim to couple butanol fermentation with biodiesel production to improve the economic viability of biofuels. However, crude glycerol contains growth-inhibiting by-products which inhibit production.

A culture of wild-type C. pasteurianum (ATCC 6013) was chemically-mutated, and the resulting population underwent selection in increasing concentrations of crude glycerol. The best-performing mutant, M150B, showed a 91% increase in butanol production compared to wild-types.

Mutations were identified in the M150B genome including a deletion mutation in the gene of the master transcriptional regulator of sporulation, Spo0A. A spo0A-single gene knockout strain was then developed and showed similar tolerance to crude glycerol as the evolved mutant strain M150B.

Growth-associated butanol production shows C. pasteurianum to be an attractive option for further engineering as it could be a good candidate for butanol production.