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News and TrendsTo curb financial losses, the French oil company Total S.A. announced plans to convert its oil refinery in southern France to a biorefinery that will convert used cooking oils and other feedstock into renewable diesel. The company stated that Europe's demand for petroleum products has declined by 15 percent since 2008. "This underlying trend stems from pursuit of energy efficiency and improved vehicle fuel economy as part of the European Union's commitment to reducing its carbon footprint," Total said. With plans to halt crude oil processing by the end of next year, the facility will produce 500,000 tons of renewable diesel using Axens' Vegan process. While some of the site's units are transformed, it will maintain profitable refining activities and develop new ones such as an 8 megawatt solar farm to provide 50 percent of the site's power needs. http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/04/16/major-advance-in-artificial-photosynthesis/ A breakthrough system which captures carbon dioxide and converts it into valuable chemical products, including liquid fuels using solar energy, has been developed. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California Berkeley have developed a hybrid system of nanowires and bacteria that mimics photosynthesis. However, this new system synthesizes acetate, the most common building block today for biosynthesis. "Our system has the potential to fundamentally change the chemical and oil industry in that we can produce chemicals and fuels in a totally renewable way, rather than extracting them from deep below the ground." says Peidong Yang, a chemist with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division and one of the leaders of this study. In the system, nanowires harvest solar energy and give electrons to bacteria, where carbon dioxide is reduced and combined with water for the synthesis of a variety of targeted, value-added chemical products. China Steel Corporation will invest on a commercial ethanol facility in Taiwan that will recycle metal production gases into biofuel. Dr. Jo-Chi Tsou, Chairman of China Steel Corporation said the process will help "by recycling carbon from the steel mill and enabling green growth through production of useful everyday products". LanzaTech's gas fermentation process uses microbes to capture and reuse carbon rich waste gases. The facility is planned for construction in late 2015, with the intention to scale up in a few years. The investment followed a demonstration of the carbon recycling platform at the White Biotech (WBT) Demonstration Plant in Kaohsiung, using steel mill off gases for ethanol production. WBT is a joint venture between China Steel Corporation and LCY Chemical Corporation, as part of a Green Energy Alliance with LanzaTech. In Maryland, Intrexon Corporation has collaborated with FuturaGene Group, a subsidiary of Suzano Papel e Celulose S.A., the second largest producer of eucalyptus pulp in the world. The collaboration aims to increase biomass in eucalyptus and poplar trees. This collaboration will utilize Intrexon's platform to design complex, innovative gene constructs and FuturaGene's expertise in yield enhancement to develop improved qualities in eucalyptus as well as poplar trees. "FuturaGene's approval from CTNBio further positions the company at the leading edge of the forestry industry and we congratulate them on this recent success," stated Nir Nimrodi, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Head of Intrexon's Environment Sector. Research and DevelopmentIn 2013, colleagues Timothy C. Keener, and Drew C. McAvoy, from the University of Cincinnati, proposed to convert food waste into gaseous fuels, solid fuels, biodiesel and other products. The researchers have since developed a synergistic technology that uses anaerobic digestion (AD) to turn organic materials into fuel, fertilizer, or soil conditioner, while using the carbon dioxide fraction of the biogas to grow algae where lipid oils are also extracted and converted to biodiesel. This process allows researchers to almost completely utilize the carbon found in food waste. "The anaerobic digestion of food waste coupled with algae production seems to be an attractive alternative for not only reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but also for the production of renewable energy," McAvoy explained. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12155-015-9613-2/fulltext.html Efficient conversion of lignocellulosic feedstock to ethanol will benefit from consistent composition of biomass. A research team, led by Stephen P. Long of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, aim to determine the influence of environment on biomass composition of M. × giganteus. Genetically identical M. × giganteus were planted in seven sites with contrasting soil types and levels of nitrogen fertilization. Despite environmental differences, minimal variation was observed across locations, sampling times and fertilizer treatments. Nitrogen fertilization had a small effect, significantly decreasing the proportion of hemicellulose, acetyl groups, and ash and increased cellulose and lignin. On the other hand, delaying harvest time significantly increased the proportion of these same substances. The findings show that composition varies minimally with environment or timing of harvest, which still has important implications for costs of processing in a given location. Energy Crops and Feedstocks for Biofuels Productionhttp://www.news.wisc.edu/23694 Scientists from the University of Wisconsin have proven the potential of softwoods to be processed easier into pulp and paper when given a specific characteristic of hardwoods. Lignin, the substance that gives plants sturdiness, is derived from G- and S-monomers, with S-monomers producing an easily degradable lignin. Hardwoods possess both G- and S-monomers while softwoods only have G-monomers, making them harder to process. However, their long fibers are suitable for paper products and their sugars easily convert to ethanol. Researchers transformed cells of softwood pines using genes of two enzymes known to produce flowering plants. The resulting cells were capable of making the S-monomers in their cell walls. With this, researchers will next attempt to modify actual softwood plants. "What we've shown is that it's possible to pair some of the most economically desirable traits of each wood type," says John Ralph, the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center's (GLBRC) plants leader and a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of biochemistry. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12155-015-9619-9/fulltext.html Nutrients in dairy wastewaters can be remediated by absorption into algal biomass. Previously, ADE, as waste created by anaerobically digested manure, has been found useful for algal cultivation. An alternate manure processing generates another distinct waste, PHAE, which is yet to be tested for algal cultivation. The team of Kevin Feris of the Boise State University evaluated PHAE for use in algae cultivation. The growth of the algae Chlorella vulgaris in PHAE was evaluated. Growth rates of C. vulgaris were elevated in PHAE than in ADE. Furthermore, the growth phase of the algae lasted two times longer for PHAE, resulting in a higher stationary phase algal concentration. Growth in ADE was also limited by specific inhibitory properties. Maximum nitrogen removal rates for PHAE were also found higher. Moreover, the biomass from PHAE contained more lipids and thus has a greater potential as a feedstock for biofuel production. |
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