Aug
16
New Tool Doubles Production of Butanol and Cuts Costs
August 16, 2012 | Leave a Comment
A new discovery at the University of Illinois should make the alternative fuel butanol more attractive to the biofuel industry. Scientist Hao Feng has found a way to significantly reduce the cost of the energy involved and a way around a bottleneck that has frustrated producers in the past. Feng explains, “The first challenge in […]
Jul
19
Butanol Gets a Commercial Start
July 19, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Butamax Advanced Biofuels LLC, the joint venture research effort of British Petroleum and DuPont has set up an “Early Adopters Group” (EAG). Four more ethanol producers have joined the EAG bringing the total number of ethanol plants that have indicated interest in the company’s biobutanol technology to seven. Butamax CEO Paul Beckwith said in a […]
Mar
30
UCLA Researchers Use Electricity and CO2 to Make Butanol
March 30, 2012 | 6 Comments
A research team at UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has for the first time demonstrated a method for converting carbon dioxide into the liquid fuel isobutanol using electricity. The study paper is published today, March 30 2012, in the journal Science. The study explains how James Liao, UCLA’s Ralph M. Parsons […]
Mar
5
Oil In a Fight With Itself
March 5, 2012 | 3 Comments
The renewable fuel producers are about to up the pressure on the world oil industry, and for consumers it’s not a moment too soon. First off, South Dakota’s government has approved a subsidy of 20 cents per gallon for ethanol plants to transition over to butanol. The cap for the subsidy is $4 million per […]
Aug
15
Genetic Engineering Runs High Speed Metabolism In Reverse
August 15, 2011 | 1 Comment
They must have some interesting brains storming sessions at Rice University. Bioengineering researchers at Rice have unveiled a new method for rapidly converting simple glucose, sugar, into biofuels and petrochemical substitutes. Rice’s team describes with a paper published online in Nature, how it reversed one of the most efficient of all metabolic pathways — the […]
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