Biomass and Biofuels Technology Marketing Summaries

Currently, when a patient arrives at the hospital or doctor’s office feeling ill, they are first examined by the doctor, sent to a blood lab where vials of blood are taken, and then sent home to wait for results. This approach often means patients must wait days or weeks, to get results. During that waiting period, they are not receiving treatment, which can be a critical factor for cancer, heart attack, or stroke patients. 

Sandia researchers have developed a break-through... read more

Sandia researchers have developed a technology that could potentially turn agricultural waste, weeds and other plant products that are typically discarded or destroyed into fuel.  The idea is to create consolidated biorefinery process inside plant cells. 

Fossil fuel resources supply almost 90 percent of the world’s energy and the vast majority of its organic chemicals. This dependency is insupportable in light of rising emissions, demand and diminishing access.

Abundant, renewable biomass is an emerging alternative. But if biomass is to supplant oil, coal and gas as an energy and chemical resource, it must match the wide array of products derived from those traditional sources. In addition to liquid fuel, vital products like ... read more

With the annual potential of over 1.3 billion dry tons of biomass, the prospective growth of biomass related industries is tremendous. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) leads the DOE’s National Bioenergy Center, with research spanning the full spectrum from fundamental science to demonstration in fully integrated pilot plant scale operations. Plant cell walls represent a vast renewable carbon source. Biofuels derived from plant cell wall material is a promising renewable... read more

Demand for the production of bio-based fuels is on the rise around the world and in the United States due to a growing desire to overcome dependency on petroleum derived fuels.  Furthermore, there is a strong desire to produce bio-based fuels from renewable cellulosic materials from non-food based feedstocks such as crop residues, woodchips, dedicated energy crops, industrial and other waste sources.  This practice would lessen the utilization of food crops for humans and livestock as... read more

With the annual potential of over 1.3 billion dry tons of biomass, the prospective growth of biofuels is great. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) leads the DOE’s National Bioenergy Center, with research spanning the full spectrum from fundamental science to demonstration in fully integrated pilot plants.

The distinguishing aspects are that currently, lipid extraction from algae is a difficult process and is performed with solvents or high pressure. These processes use toxic... read more

Cellulose is the most abundant renewable fuel resource on Earth, accounting for about half of the organic material in the biosphere, and is the major polysaccharide found in plant biomass. Cellulosic biomass is a favorable feedstock for fuel ethanol production because it is both readily available and less expensive than either corn or sugarcane. A typical biomass feedstock is comprised of approximately 30-45% cellulose, 30-40% hemicelluloses, 15% lignin and 10% of other components.... read more

Biofuels such as ethanol are already in use as alternatives to fossil fuels. These man-made fuels help to offset carbon dioxide emissions and are a sustainable source of power. Unfortunately, they are generally made from materials that could be used as human food, causing shortages and raising food prices worldwide. As a result, researchers are investigating means to turn inedible biomass sources, like sawdust, into biofuels, but are struggling to find viable, cost-effective methods to do so.... read more

INL’s process enables an agricultural combine to separate multiple products , e.g. agricultural residue, grain, etc. in a single pass across a field. The remaining material will pass through a secondary thresher separate internodal stem from the plant material and then passed to baler. The crops or plant material which could benefit from this product include: wheat, barley, corn, or it could be utilized by grain crops, cereal crops and legumes.

This is a process for producing jet fuel from biological feed stock, including animal fats and oils, vegetable oils, and crop seed oils. The aviation and fuel-producing communities would have the option of leveraging available renewable and/or nonrenewable jet fuel sources. The oils and fats can be distilled, separated, and purified to change fuel composition, weights, etc.  In certain situations oils can be hydrocracked to produce smaller molecular weights and different catalysts,... read more

The INL has developed a geospatial decision making process to assist agricultural producers in optimizing operating conditions of combine harvesters  which detects the presence of grain and distinguishes between that and residual plant material. Upon detecting grain in the process, the system sends an electrical signal which determines the amount of grain being processed in the machine, improving the accuracy of grain-loss sensors and greater efficiency and higher yields. Previous... read more

The invention provides a low cost structural composite alternative for use in typical structural lumber/wood applications in building construction, marine, transportation applications, and the like.

This technology provides an alternate method to synthesize a key type of PVC plasticizer described in US 6,797,753 (see separate description entitled “Plasticizers Derived from Vegetable Oils”).  This approach uses esters of fatty acids as feed materials and more specifically uses methyl esters of vegetable oils that are referred to as “biodiesel” fuels.  One particularly useful biodiesel is soybean oil biodiesel (methyl soyate) that is projected to be a high... read more

Non-purified soymeal is used as an inexpensive and biobased reactive filler in preparing high capacity hydrogels. Preparation of these hydrogels involves partial neutralization of acrylic acid, which is subjected to free-radical initiated polymerization in the presence of crosslinkers such as trimethylolpropane triacrylate.  A key approach in obtaining high performance hydrogels involves the removal of low molecular weight acrylic acid oligomers by a simple extraction procedure.

This technology addresses the known health issues of commonly used petroleum-based plasticizers used in polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a high volume thermoplastic material (one that is moldable and formed by heating) by providing a biobased and renewable PVC plasticizer with no known adverse health effects.  These PVC plasticizers are derived from soybean oil, but also can be obtained from other vegetable oils.

This technology relates to cellulosic fiber composites using protein hydrolysates. Cellulosic fiber composites currently use petroleum-derived binders such as isocyanates and phenol formaldehyde. This work fills a need for a new fiber-adhesive, resin binder system that reduces the amount of phenolic and/or isocyanate resin needed.

Cellulosic biomass accounts for roughly 75% of all plant material, and can be used to produce biofuels. Sources of cellulosic biomass include agricultural plant waste, organic waste from industrial processes, and crops grown specifically for fuel production. Biological conversion makes use of enzymes and microorganisms to convert pretreated cellulosic biomass into biofuels. In particular, Escherichia coli is a well-studied micro-organism commonly used in large-scale fermentations. In addition... read more

A research team led by Dr. Jason Ren of the University of Colorado has developed novel microbial capacitive desalination cell (MCDC) technology for sustainable desalination, renewable energy production, and wastewater treatment solution.

Bioethanol is an economical and environmentally friendly biofuel that has emerged as a sustainable fuel source. Fermentation is an attractive process for producing bioethanol, but requires costly product separation due to the low concentration of the fermentative products. Nanoporous polymer membranes have recently been explored not only in separating water from dissolved solutes in fermentation systems such as this, but also in liquid water purification and desalination. However, attempts at... read more

With present day environmental and energy concerns rising, the development of environmentally friendly energy sources is quickly becoming a top priority. One group of alternative energy sources that show great potential to meet future energy demands are bioelectrochemical systems (BES) or microbial fuel cells (MFC), which can be used to both treat waste water and produce energy. Current wastewater treatment processes are energy-intensive due to the power demand for aeration, sludge... read more

In today’s industrial processes, heterogeneous catalysts are widely used because of their stability and ease of separation from the reactant phase compared to their homogenous counterparts. A continual challenge in the advancement of heterogeneous catalysts is in the improvement of selectivity, which can significantly reduce costs of product purification and waste. Historically, homogenous catalysts offer high selectivity utilizing specific interactions, while heterogeneous catalysts... read more

Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have developed a low-cost process that accelerates biological methane production rates at least fivefold — the Enhanced Renewable Methane Production System. The system could enhance biological methane production at wastewater treatment plants, farms, and landfills.  This system addresses one of the largest barriers to the expansion of renewable methane — the naturally slow rate of production. To overcome this challenge, Argonne... read more

Magnetic nanoparticles and their broad array of properties are enabling scientists to develop increasingly sensitive, rapid, and cost-effective biological sensors. The sensors promise an array of applications as wide-ranging as the discovery of a new drug or remote detection of toxins or contaminants in air or water.

Cell membranes serve as the biological structure through which an organism interacts with its environment. Making up the cell membrane are numerous proteins responsible for many processes including nutrient uptake, excreting metabolic waste, and responding to external stimuli.

Because of their unique properties, membrane proteins are difficult to isolate and purify. Most existing systems for expressing heterologous membrane proteins are either costly or suffer from various disadvantages.... read more

Insect pests are a major cause of damage to the world’s commercially important agricultural crops. Current strategies aimed at reducing crop losses rely primarily on chemical pesticides. Transgenic crops with intrinsic pest resistance offer a potential alternative.

Bacterial production of recombinant proteins is used commonly by researchers and commercial entities to manufacture a large variety of proteins. However, many proteins are not produced efficiently in bacterial cells and must be produced through a different expression system. In these cases the researcher generally does not realize that protein expression failed until the bacteria are destroyed, the protein isolated and a gel run to detect the presence of the protein, a time-consuming process.

M... read more

Argonne National Laboratory has developed a resin wafer electrodeionization technology for processing biomass-based feedstocks into biofuels and chemicals. The new technology reduces the cost of producing clean energy and of the chemicals and process water used in industry.

Ethylene is the most produced gaseous organic compound in the chemical industry and future demand is forecasted to grow at an average of 4.1 % per year.  It is the raw material used to manufacture polymers such as polyethylene, polyester, polyvinyl chloride, and polystyrene as well as fibers and other chemicals used in the industrial and consumer markets of packaging, transportation and construction. It can be used directly as a fuel, or serve as a precursor for longer carbon chain... read more

Alpha-ketoglutarate (AKG) is widely used as an organic synthesis intermediate, a medical and biochemical reagent, and as a nutritional additive in food and sports drinks.  Typically, it is produced from a derivative of petroleum and concentrated hydrochloric acid.  However, the rising cost of petroleum has led to the exploration and development of alternative, biological production systems for fuels and chemicals.  Recently, a number of organizations have successfully... read more

Aindrila Mukhopadhyay, Jay Keasling, and Mary Dunlop at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have developed a method for providing industrial host microbes with resistance to valuable but potentially toxic molecules, such as solvents and fuel-like compounds. Providing such tolerance is a crucial step in engineering organisms to produce desirable substances. The scientists used efflux pumps to confer resistance on E. coli and developed a library of the most effective pumps for protection... read more

Pamela Ronald and a team of researchers at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have engineered plants with inhibited expression of snl6, a cinnamoyl-CoA reductase-like (CCR-like) gene. As a result, the JBEI plants have reduced lignin or phenolic compounds compared to wild type plants and yield an increase of up to 10 percent of sugar extracted. The JBEI technology can be applied to a wide range of plants including rice, miscanthus, switchgrass, sugarcane, sugar beet, sorghum and corn, among... read more

Cheryl Kerfeld and James Kinney at Berkeley Lab have identified peptide targeting signals that can direct selected enzymes, metabolites, and other macromolecules to microcompartments or scaffolds used to engineer reactions in cells and non-cellular systems.

To achieve methods of inserting microcompartments into cells and nonliving vesicles to engineer desirable reactions, a targeting signal can be required to bring the enzymes and necessary reaction components to the microcompartment or... read more

Biofuels produced from biomass provide a promising alternative to fossil fuels. Biomass is an inexpensive, readily available and renewable resource. However, the process of converting biomass into biofuels is difficult and costly. Biomass consists of insoluble polysaccharides such as cellulose that are difficult to break down into fermentable sugars like glucose.

Many combinations of enzymes and proteins that naturally deconstruct cellulose and other biomass components have been identified,... read more

One of the greatest challenges of our time is the need for new, renewable sources of energy to offset modern society’s dependence on fossil fuels. One clean technology of interest is a hydrogen-based fuel cell.

A hydrogen fuel cell is comprised of an electrolyte sandwiched between two electrodes. Oxygen passes over one electrode and hydrogen over the other, generating electricity, water and heat. In microbial fuel cells (MFC), bacteria convert an organic substrate, such as sugar or waste... read more

Lignocellulosic biomass is a very desirable feedstock for biofuel production. If the fermentation process for lignocellulose could be optimized, conversion of this biomass could yield 25 to 50 billion gallons of ethanol per year.

However, lignocellulose, which is composed of lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose, is resistant to chemical or enzymatic hydrolysis. This resistance is a key limiting step in the conversion of biomass into fermentable sugars. Currently, pretreatment steps, which... read more

E. coli is the most common prokaryote used to produce protein. The expressed protein generally accumulates in the cytoplasm. While this approach is useful for some proteins, not all proteins can be accumulated in the cytoplasm in an active state. When the desired protein is produced at high levels, it may be toxic to the host cell or accumulate as an insoluble particle known as an inclusion body, making it difficult to recover in an active form.

One option is to engineer protein so it is... read more

New, renewable sources of transportation fuel are needed to meet continuing demand. While the main focus has been on biomass-derived gasoline alternatives such as ethanol and other short-chain alcohols, distillates with higher energy density such as diesel and jet fuel are required for the heavy transportation sector.

Biodiesel is a biodegradable, clean-burning combustible fuel made of medium- to long-chain hydrocarbons that can be used in most internal combustion diesel engines. Current... read more

• Continuous, consistent, controllable material flow rates,
• Real time, positive control of gas species and fuel/air ratios, and
• Highly variable, efficient and scalable transport systems.