The U.S. technology company, Greenyug, is planning to build an industrial scale ethyl acetate manufacturing facility. Its newly formed subsidiary, Prairie Catalytic, will operate the plant.

The chemical plant will be located near Archer Daniels Midland Co.'s (ADM) wet mill corn processing facilities in Columbus, Nebraska. ADM's mill will supply the facility with bioethanol feedstock and other services. Construction of the facility is scheduled in late 2016 and production will start a year later.

Greenyug ethyl acetate is a specialty solvent used in products such as paints, coatings, pharmaceuticals, adhesives, and a variety of consumer goods. Greenyug's ethyl acetate will be the first commercially-available chemical of its kind in industrial quantities to be sourced from renewable feedstock.

The U.S. Grains Council (USGC) and its domestic industry partners have communicated with their South Korean counterparts to promote U.S. ethanol exports.

A workshop hosted last week by the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service in Seoul, South Korea, gave a summary of global ethanol supply and demand, offered information about past experience with ethanol policy, and discussed the merits of using ethanol versus gasoline.

The workshop aims to create a favorable atmosphere for the introduction of bioethanol in Korea in the future. After the workshop, the group held meetings with Korea's energy association, K-Petro, and the largest non-fuel ethanol company in Korea, Changhae Ethanol, discussing experiences and technologies from the U.S. fuel ethanol industry.

Currently, South Korea only uses ethanol for industrial but not transport applications. The country consumes about 3 billion gallons of petrol per year, more than any market in Asia other than China, India, and Japan.

A new analysis of the bacteria Streptomyces reveals the way some strains of the microbe develop advanced abilities to degrade cellulose, and points out ways how the industry could mimic those abilities for biofuel production.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers measured the abilities of more than 200 types of Streptomyces bacteria by growing them on simple sugar and filter paper, a good source of cellulose. They were able to collect the genomes of strong cellulose degrading strains, and identify the genes that set them apart.

The successful Streptomyces strains were those typically found living in communities with insects. These strains can ramp up production of certain enzymes as well as the proteins that cleave, dissolve, and pick apart cellulose. It's the particular combinations of enzymes that makes the research useful to scientists working on biofuels.

The study identifies important enzymes, and new groups of enzymes, produced when Streptomyces degrades cellulose. These findings could be of great advantage for biofuel production.

Lignin has been a problem for scientists interested in converting plant biomass to biofuels. A simple solution might be to engineer plants with less lignin, but previous attempts have often resulted in weaker plants and stunted growth. However, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, together with their collaborators, have altered the lignin in aspen trees that resulted in increased access to sugars and ethanol yield, without affecting plant growth.

In the study, the scientists identified a variant of monolignol 4-O-methyltransferase, which can hinder the formation of a particular lignin component. The team then transplanted the gene for this variant into a strain of fast-growing aspen trees.

The transgenic trees had only slightly less total lignin in their cell walls. However, these trees also had altered, more condensed lignin structure. Scientists found that these condensed structures released up to 62 percent more simple sugars when treated with digestive enzymes.

Further analysis found that altering lignin content and composition also increased the production of cellulose fibers, the major source of fermentable sugars in the cell wall. This increased cellulose content might partially contribute to the increased release of simple sugars. Importantly, the changes did not affect the growth of the engineered aspens.

A team of three students from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT-D) developed a prototype machine called FAME One, which converts waste cooking oil into biodiesel. The invention is eco-friendly and affordable, thus opening doors for its use in rural setups to convert oil seeds into diesel.

FAME One utilizes the transesterification process and, apart from waste cooking oil, requires water, alcohol, and a catalyst. The students have also done feasibility tests on the machine. Their results show that it is an efficient way to cut down on diesel usage as well as dispose the waste oil generated every day.

The students, who recently won the GE Edison challenge and a cash prize of 1 million rupees, plan to use their prize money to conduct further research on the product and its market launch.