The search for a less-expensive, sustainable source of biomass, or plant material, for producing gasoline, diesel and jet fuel has led scientists to duckweed, that fast-growing floating plant that turns ponds and lakes green. ...
Energy & Green Tech
Mar 6, 2013
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Microorganisms that can break down plant biomass into the precursors of biodiesel or other commodity chemicals might one day be used to produce alternatives to petroleum. But the potential of this "biorefinery" technology ...
Biotechnology
Feb 14, 2013
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New protein probes are now helping scientists find the best biomass-to-biofuel production enzymes that nature has to offer. Turning biomass into biofuel hinges on the breakdown of the energy-rich primary component of plant ...
Biotechnology
Feb 6, 2013
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Scientists studying an enzyme that naturally produces alkanes—long carbon-chain molecules that could be a direct replacement for the hydrocarbons in gasoline—have figured out why the natural reaction typically stops after ...
Biochemistry
Feb 4, 2013
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The DISCO project coordinated by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed powerful enzymes, which accelerate plant biomass conversion into sugars and further into products such as bioethanol. The project's results ...
Biotechnology
Jan 8, 2013
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Day after day, legions of microorganisms work to produce energy from waste in biogas plants. Researchers from Bielefeld University's Center for Biotechnology (CeBiTec) are taking a close look to find out which microbes do ...
Biotechnology
Dec 21, 2012
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In a letter to Science published last week, Karl-Heinz Erb from the Institute of Social Ecology Vienna and a number of co-authors discuss how the measurement of biomass production and consumption can be used to gain a better ...
Ecology
Dec 19, 2012
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In a new approach for tapping biomass as a sustainable raw material, scientists are reporting use of a Nobel-Prize-winning technology to transform plant "essential oils"—substances with the characteristic fragrance of the ...
Materials Science
Dec 12, 2012
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One reason that biofuels are expensive to make is that the organisms used to ferment the biomass cannot make effective use of hemicellulose, the next most abundant cell wall component after cellulose. They convert only the ...
Biochemistry
Nov 29, 2012
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With increasing demands for sustainable energy, being able to cost-efficiently produce biofuels from plant biomass is more important than ever. However, lignin and hemicelluloses present in certain plants mean that they cannot ...
Biotechnology
Nov 26, 2012
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