Ethanol & Biofuels Technology

5/22/2013 - The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on May 14 issued U.K.-based BP Chemicals Ltd. a patent for producing olefins – such as ethylene and propylene – from a mixed ethanol (C2) and propanol (C3) feedstock stream.

5/22/2013 - The Spanish Institute for Chemical Research for Catalonia (ICIQ) on May 14 released a “technology available” notice via the international Innoget service, titled “Carbon dioxide (CO2) recycling: high yielding process for the preparation of methanol and DME [dimethyl ether] from carbon dioxide.”

5/15/2013 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced May 2 that a team of Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists at the agency’s National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Ill. have developed a new strain of yeast that could help streamline cellulosic-ethanol costs and production. ARS is the USDA’s chief intramural scientific research agency.

5/8/2013 - The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on April 30 issued France-based industrial gas technology vendor Air Liquide a patent for a “combined first- and second-generation biofuels process.”

5/8/2013 - The University of Exeter (U.K.) announced April 23 that – with support from Shell – it has developed a method that forces bacteria to produce diesel fuel “on demand.”

5/8/2013 - The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) announced April 26 that recent research suggests combining two enzyme systems in an industrial setting could lead to economical and more expedient biomass conversion rates for biofuel production.

4/24/2013 - Refinery technology vendor UOP LLC – a Honeywell company – applied with the U.S. Patent Office on March 28 a patent that covers “Methods for Co-Production of Alkylbenzene and Biofuel from Natural Oils Using Hydrocracking.”

4/17/2013 - At the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) 245th National Meeting & Exposition held in New Orleans, La. from April 7 to 11, a team of scientists at the University of Bristol (U.K.) reported the discovery of a new family of catalysts that can upgrade ethanol into butanol.

4/17/2013 - The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) posted April 5 a grant opportunity notice for up to about US$13 million in awards to fundamental research and education that will enable innovative processes for the sustainable production of electricity and transportation fuels.

4/10/2013 - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced April 4 that it will fund three Bioenergy Research Centers for an additional five-year period, subject to continued congressional appropriations.

4/10/2013 - The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced March 14 that it’s reviewing BP North America’s patent application on producing all-hydrocarbon renewable-diesel at oil refineries while complying with legal constraints associated with “co-processing.”

4/3/2013 - A team of Chinese scientists have achieved higher cellulosic-ethanol yield from degradation of poplar wood chips pretreated with white-rot fungus compared to non-treated control, reported the journal Biotechnology for Biofuels.

4/3/2013 - The Michigan Biotechnology Institute (MBI) and Michigan State University (MSU) on March 21 entered into a collaborative arrangement “under which promising bio-based technologies will be accelerated from the laboratory to commercial deployment,” according to a statement issued by MBI.

3/27/2013 - The U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) this month has issued a new funding opportunity announcement (FOA) for up to US$20 million to fund the development of bio-conversion technologies to convert methane into liquid fuels.

3/20/2013 - Southern Research Institute (SRI) announced March 13 it won a US$925,000 award from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a mild liquefaction process that will economically convert biomass into petroleum refinery-ready bio-oils, which can be further refined into gasoline and/or diesel range hydrocarbons.

3/20/2013 - The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued Japanese chemical maker Mitsui Chemicals Inc. a patent on March 5 for a “Method of Producing Propylene Containing Biomass-Origin Carbon.”

3/20/2013 - Chevron USA was awarded on March 5 a U.S. patent for a process for producing biofuel via a catalytic deoxygenation scheme.

3/20/2013 - In a paper released March 6, U.S. and Chinese researchers determined that a small-scale duckweed-based biomass-to-liquid (BTL) biorefinery producing a range of gasoline, diesel and kerosene products could be cost-competitive with petroleum-based processes at a scale of about 5,000 to 10,000 barrels per day.

3/13/2013 - The University of Bath (U.K.) announced February 28 that researchers have developed a novel carbon nanotube (CNT)-based iron catalyst for the simplified conversion of carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2) to longer chain hydrocarbons.