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Archive for May, 2011

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BioMCN’s Wood-to-Methanol Plant in Netherlands

May 28th, 2011

BioMCN, a Netherlands based company, is developing a new plant that would produce second-generation biobased methanol from woody biomass. Its notable to mention that the company already produces the 200,000 metric tons of biobased methanol per year using waste glycerin sourced from biodiesel plants.

Biobased methanol produced at the plant qualifies as a second-generation biofuel under the European Union’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED), most of which will be sold into the fuels market, where it is blended with gasoline, in a way to reduce petroleum consumption.

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Biodegradable Plastic Packaging for Gutka

May 27th, 2011

While the gutka industry was going downhill due to all the harmful plastic wrappers that were used for packaging, Dipack Sangghvi’s alternative to non-biodegradable plastic packaging gave a new lease of life to the the gutka industry.

The biodegradable bag, technically termed as a “bioplastic”, will turn into compost 180 days after it comes into contact with the soil. Also, the bags that will be made out of 30-micron thick material do not cause harm to the environment.

Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams Trust (TTDT) has decided to utilize this opportunity to switch over from common plastic carry bags to Sangghvi’s bioplastic bags as a packing material for the popular Tirupathi ladoos that are handed over to devotees.

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From Micro Propagation to Mass Propagation – A Jatropha Success Story

May 26th, 2011

One of the previous entries in the blog elaborated about the problems with Jatropha propagation and the need for tissue culture for ramping up Jatropha business. The persistent inconsistencies associated with macro propagation makes tissue culture a must need for Jatropha’s success.

JOil, a Singapore based company which is a joint venture between Temasek Life Sciences and Tata Chemicals have come up with remarkable success in developing over two million Jatropha tissue culture plants in different regions of the world (India, China, Philippines, Thailand, Kenya etc)

Mass production of Jatropha would get a big boost once this technology is scaled up successfully. Improvements in performance of the plant through specific breeding programs have always remained to be futile attempts. Giant companies like BP have records of abandoning attempts for Jatropha micro propagation due to uncertainties about commercial viabilities. But JOil is genuinely catalyzing a turnaround for biofuel industry. Joil is in talks with other companies such as Yoma Strategic Holdings, Europhtonic Group, Trafigura Biofuels etc to partner with them so as to improve the plantation operations.

The initial market for the Jatropha plants will be India, although JOil is also targeting the Philippines and Thailand – where it recently appointed Toyota Tsusho Corp as its sales representative, and with which it is also working to set up nurseries and tissue culture facilities there. Another target market is Kenya and Mozambique in East Africa, through partner Tata Chemicals

 

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Jatropha World Asia 2011

May 25th, 2011

Jatropha World Asia 2011

27-28 Jun, 2011 – Haikou, Hainan Island

In February, the European parliament voted for new rules that require lower emission levels from vehicles. Worldwide, governments are also following suit on a similar route to increase targets for clean energy use in their respective countries. There is a need to increase our dependence on biofuels in near term and with recent announcements of increasing supply of crude jatropha oil, Jatropha has risen up to skepticisms and misinformation, proving that it can be a sustainable feedstock option for biofuel.

The biggest question in everyone’s mind would be :-

How can Jatropha oil reach the high volume required for large-scale biofuel production?

How can Jatropha oil be produced economically?

These critical questions would be answered at the Jatropha World Asia 2011 conference centered on the theme “Delivering Jatropha Oil to the Market -Strategies to Ramp Up Production”

Various themes of discussions include:-

Successful Case Studies of large-scale Jatropha seed & oil production in Asia, Brazil & Madagascar

Strategies to optimize production output to meet increasing global demand for biodiesel and aviation biofuel

Best Practices for producers to improve Jatropha productivity

Innovations & Technologies in Breeding and Genetic Engineering

Ensuring Sustainability Standards are met and move towards international certifiable jatropha biofuel production

Global Outlook of Biofuel market: How Jatropha stacks up against other feedstocks?

Advancing Jatropha’s Position as premium feedstock for Aviation Biofuel production

For further information and registration

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Multipurpose Technology in Ethanol Production from Cellulosic Feedstocks

May 23rd, 2011

As ethanol production witnesses a complex series of technical and financial problems, commercial firms have started to devise methods robustly for addressing those issues in a compressed way. Chemtex and Gruppo Mossi and Ghisolfi, have invested significant currency and dedication for the development of the PROESA™ ligno-cellulosic bio-ethanol technology. The scientists have engineered and constructed a pilot facility in Rivalta, Italy where they have developed a unique bio-mass pretreatment and hydrolysis process, for which 11 patent applications have been filed, for transforming cellulosic feedstocks into sugars for conversion into ethanol and/or bio-based chemicals. Some of the key features include Capability to use a large variety of biomass as collected, Unique pre-treatment process that produces high quality and low cost sugar from cellulosic biomass for conversion to ethanol and/or bio-based chemicals, High efficiency in viscosity reduction enzymatic hydrolysis and Energy integration with high efficiency burning of lignin. It is really exciting to watch such  a powerful technology with scope to satisfy and improve multiple tasks technically which in turn carry a profound influence in the flow of money for production.

 

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Cost Effective Enzymes in Processing of Cellulosic Feedstock for Alcohol Generation

May 23rd, 2011

Hydrolytic enzymes are vital preprocessing elements in the production of ethanol but often found to so expensive to apply them in a generous way for transforming an huge quantum of polymeric substances. It has made commercial firms to target enzymes as key bottlenecks and must be evaluated from different sources for cost effective implementation in production process. AE Biofuels is a vertically integrated company developing biofuel solutions for the world’s renewable energy needs on a global basis using patent-pending cellulosic ethanol technology. The key to the company’s strategy is the production of cellulosic ethanol from crop wastes such as corn stover and wheat straw, or energy crops such as switchgrass, sugar cane bagasse and miscanthus. AE Biofuels’ process uses low-cost enzymes with multiple activities that reduce processing costs. The enzymes convert cellulose and hemicellulose to reducing sugars for fermentation into ethanol. AE Biofuels is leading the way in integrating cellulosic ethanol production into starch based processes and increase the efficiency of overall ethanol production. The integrated process results higher alcohol concentration, reduced energy and less water consumption. Any obstruction encountered is now overcome by the intellectual application in the biofuel promotion technologies to harvest the ecological potential.

 

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Novel Technologies in the Generation of Bioethanol

May 23rd, 2011

Technological advancements are constantly evolving to meet the difficulties and maximize the scope of value added product generation in ethanol production process. Archer Daniels Midland Company makes ethanol from corn through an efficient process that also produces large amounts of animal feed. In addition, they are working both independently and in partnership with other leading companies and research institutions to develop next generation biofuels made from cellulosic sources.

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) will develop a pilot plant to demonstrate the continuous production of cellulosic ethanol and ethyl acrylate from densified corn stover. Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) developed a process to pretreat and pelletize corn stover, increasing its density for easy transportation and long term storage. At the central plant, the densified corn stover is separated into its three major components: cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Hydrolysis converts cellulose and hemicellulose fractions into sugars, while lignin is utilized as an energy source for process steam generation. Some of the sugars are fermented to ethanol and the remaining sugars hydrogenated to polyols. Catalytic conversion of the polyols, followed by processing of resulting intermediates, yields the chemical, ethyl acrylate. This value-added compound is used to make plastics, adhesives, paints, coatings and a range of other materials. Industrial strategies such as these would make a balance in the cost expenditures for ethanol production and even ensuring additional income.

 

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Technical Constraints for Fermentation-based Ethanol Production

May 23rd, 2011

Ethanol produced by gasification or fermentation is to commercialized for economic benefits but it is facing some peculiar hurdles including ethanol pipeline distribution Issues which requires specialized material designing for effective transport of pure ethanol and costs involved in it, lack of standardization in defining the parameters with magnitude limits for ethanol from biomass feedstocks, necessity for unique coatings and their composition in tanks for ethanol transport, differences in physical properties from conventional fuels may lead to loss of ethanol by volatilization under open temperature conditions, compatibility issues of ethanol with classical engines and lower calorific values of ethanol to liberate sufficient energy.

Scientific professionals from diverse backgrounds are striving to overcome these problems and make it as a fuel with performance on par to classical fuels which would otherwise render ethanol as a second grade optional fuel.

 

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Innovations in Acid Hydrolysis Treatment

May 23rd, 2011

Pretreatment of cellulosic feedstock is a mandatory process in the conditioning of substrates with chemicals including acids and enzymes for the production of soluble sugars from polymers hemicelluose, cellulose, and xylan etc to subsequently use them for catalytic alcohol production.

CleanTech Biofuels, Inc. announced that it has fulfilled its first milestone pursuant to its exclusive worldwide sublicense agreement for technology developed at the University of California, Berkeley for converting cellulose to ethanol. The patented technology initially developed and tested at the University of California, Berkeley utilizes nitric acid for hydrolyzing cellulosic material, rather than sulphuric or hydrochloric acid, for the production of ethanol and other fuels from biomass in municipal solid waste. Sulphuric or hydrochloric acid is typically used in the industry for hydrolyzing biomass; however, CleanTech believes that nitric acid hydrolysis represents the cutting edge of current technology in the cellulosic ethanol industry. CleanTech also obtained a nonexclusive worldwide license to use the technology for all other feedstocks for producing ethanol.

 

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New Category of Microbes for Ethanol Generation

May 23rd, 2011

Microbes are broad category of biological factors carrying tremendous degree of application in any branch of applied biological sciences and its significance in ethanol production by fermentation is of core weightage. Eventhough bacteria and yeasts are the most commonly exploited microbes for processing of biomass substrates, fungus is now emerging as a potential candidate due to its potential features associated with generation of ethanol.

Dyadic International Inc, USA, has been issued a U.S.Patent on the use of enzymes from newly identified and isolated strains of Chrysosporium lucknowense, which when used in combination with other enzymes, demonstrates an extremely high ability to convert lignocellulosic biomass into fermentable sugars like glucose, xylose, arabinose, galactose, mannose, rhamnose, sucrose and fructose. These sugars are the key ingredients in the formation of biofuels. C. lucknowense is a fungus, capable of producing cellulases, hemicellulase and other such enzymes. The research group at Dyadic was keen on using at least one of the two new cellobiohydrolases in conjunction with a beta-glucosidase and an endoglucanase. As enzymes are key catalytic accelerators of ethanol generation, finding enzyme rich biological sources aids up process development.

 

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