The Malaysian Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities will be meeting with car manufacturers tomorrow to discuss the implementation of B10 biodiesel. This was set after the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA), together with various car makers, raised concerns about the effect of higher grade biodiesel on engines.

MAA claims that using B10 may result in fatty-acid methyl esters (FAME) mixing with motor oil and creating sludge in the engine. However, the Ministry said that the palm oil council has conducted extensive research and the results reveal that the B10 is safe to use in any vehicle.

The government initially aimed to enforce the 10% palm oil biodiesel in June, but was delayed due to inadequate data. Malaysia currently has a B7 blending mandate.

The South African Airways recently celebrated Africa's first sustainable biofuel flight. A Boeing flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town used biojet fuel produced from Sunchem's nicotine-free tobacco plant Solaris.

The flight serves as proof of the possibility to produce biofuel to improve lives of smallholder farmers. The Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB) hopes these impacts can be duplicated worldwide in regions with diverse feedstocks, and that there will be more similar flights.

RSB partnered with Sunchem SA and SkyNRG, which developed the Solaris tobacco, a variety with no nicotine, high seed set and limited leaf production. The crop is cultivated by farmers in the Limpopo province of South Africa. RSB continues to work with Boeing, WWF-SA and other partners to help safeguard natural resources, water and food for growing populations.

The project was launched in May 2014, with Solaris now scaled-up in South Africa as a locally produced feedstock for sustainable biojet fuel production.

The Nigeria National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) announced that plans to set up a renewable energy plant are already underway.

The decision to expand energy generation in Nigeria was created by the Federal Government in 2005 but had only been in the pipeline. However, the incumbent administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has initiated the diversification program.

The land allotted to the project will be used for the cultivation of ethanol feedstock such as sugarcane, cassava, and palm kernels. Apart from ethanol, fertilizers and animal feed will also be produced in the plant.

The Nigerian government also identified seven other states for the project. However, the success of the Benue plant would determine the development of other sites.

β-Glucosidase is a member of the biomass-degrading enzyme system and is vital in saccharification for biofuel production. In industrial practice, enzymes with high activity and great stability are always preferred. Hence, exploring natural enzymes and engineering superior mutants are approaches commonly used to improve saccharification.

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences have identified a novel β-glucosidase, Bgl3A, from Talaromyces leycettanus JCM12802 and overexpressed it in Pichia pastoris GS115. The purified enzyme recovered exhibited outstanding enzymatic properties, including good thermostability, and high catalytic performance.

However, the wildtype Bgl3A only has a narrow pH stability of 4.0-5.0, which could limit its application. Researchers then modified the enzyme and removed potential O-glycosylation sites, improving its pH stability over a broader pH range (3.0-10.0). The enhanced mutants now show a much better application prospect with improved saccharification efficiency on cellulosic materials.

Steam explosion pretreatment is currently the most common pretreatment method for enhancing enzymatic digestibility of lignocellulosic biomass in commercial biorefineries. However, knowledge of the effect of explosive decompression on enzymatic digestibility is very limited. Thomas Pielhop from ETH Zurich in Switzerland now aim to discover the effect of adding explosion to steaming and identify their individual effects on enzymatic digestibility.

Explosive decompression in the steam explosion pretreatment of spruce wood chips had a high influence on digestibility, improving it by up to 90% compared to a steam pretreatment alone. Pretreatment severity and pressure difference of the explosion were identified as factors responsible for the effect on enzymatic digestibility.

A higher pretreatment severity can weaken the lignocellulose structure, so that the explosion can better break up the biomass, enhancing its digestibility. On the other hand, increasing the pressure difference of the explosion leads to more defibration, a smaller particle size and a better digestibility. Therefore, the only influence of the explosion on digestibility was macroscopic particle size reduction.

Scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed an efficient way to recycle food waste that the country produces. They have genetically engineered Yarrowia lipolytica to convert fats in food waste into butanol.

In 2015, Singapore produced 785,500 tons of food waste in which only 13% was recycled. This prompted the NUS Synthetic Biology for Clinical and Technological Innovation to investigate how to develop a process that could turn waste into something beneficial to the country.

NUS scientists modified the genetic makeup of the Yarrowia lipolytica by inserting another 10 genes into it, resulting in a strain that can produce close to 300,000 tons of butanol from 600,000 tons of food waste.

Butanol production from food waste starts by blending food waste and extracting the fats in it before mixing it with the engineered yeast in a bioreactor. the method has been proven in the laboratory and is set to be tested on a larger scale.