Developing sustainable biofuels
Biofuels have been heralded as having the potential to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, by powering cars and generators with energy from plant biomass.
View ArticleDefining function from "genomic dark matter"
Functional annotation allowed researchers to identify biomass-degrading enzymes in the 35 percent of genes in a genome that are considered "genomic dark matter."
View ArticleThe JBEI GT Collection: A new resource for advanced biofuels research
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have unveiled the first glycosyltransferase clone collection specifically targeted for the study of the...
View Article'Microbe sniffer' could point the way to next-generation bio-refining
A new biosensor invented at the University of British Columbia could help optimize bio-refining processes that produce fuels, fine chemicals and advanced materials.
View ArticleLeaf-cutter ant fungus gardens transform during biomass degradation
A team from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center is using metabolomic and metaproteomic techniques to examine the dynamics of nutrient turnover in the...
View ArticleTermites evolved complex bioreactors 30 million years ago
Achieving complete breakdown of plant biomass for energy conversion in industrialized bioreactors remains a complex challenge, but new research shows that termite fungus farmers solved this problem...
View ArticleMaxBin: Automated sorting through metagenomes
Microbes – the single-celled organisms that dominate every ecosystem on Earth - have an amazing ability to feed on plant biomass and convert it into other chemical products. Tapping into this talent...
View ArticleNew conversion process turns biomass 'waste' into lucrative chemical products...
A new catalytic process is able to convert what was once considered biomass waste into lucrative chemical products that can be used in fragrances, flavorings or to create high-octane fuel for racecars...
View ArticleMicrobe produces ethanol from switchgrass without pretreatment
The conventional strategy for producing ethanol from plant biomass requires costly pretreatment and enzyme-driven reactions. Refining another strategy known as consolidated bioprocessing (CPB) could...
View ArticleMicrobes engineered for the direct conversion of biomass to ethanol fuel
The promise of affordable transportation fuels from biomass—a sustainable, carbon neutral route to American energy independence—has been left perpetually on hold by the economics of the conversion...
View ArticleStudy says Earth can sustain more terrestrial plant growth than previously...
A new analysis suggests the planet can produce much more land-plant biomass – the total material in leaves, stems, roots, fruits, grains and other terrestrial plant parts – than previously thought.
View ArticleUnprecedented worldwide biodiversity study
Humans depend on high levels of ecosystem biodiversity, but due to climate change and changes in land use, biodiversity loss is now greater than at any time in human history. Five University of Alberta...
View ArticleUnlikely element turns up in enzyme; commercial renewable fuels might...
Tungsten is exceptionally rare in biological systems. Thus, it came as a huge surprise to Michael Adams, PhD., and his collaborators when they discovered it in what appeared to be a novel enzyme in the...
View ArticleRotting wood turns Austria's poorest town into green model
Broke, remote and deprived of jobs—just 25 years ago, the border town of Guessing close to Hungary was one of the poorest in Austria, a forgotten frontier along the Iron Curtain trail.
View ArticleCells work tightly together to form the water-conducting vascular tissue of...
Plants transport water in pipe-like structures made of dead and empty cells within a vascular tissue called xylem. Sacha Escamez concludes in his doctoral dissertation that different cell types work...
View ArticleImproving biorefineries with bubbles
A team of researchers from Japan's Tohoku University has developed a new method for the pretreatment of organic material, or "biomass", which could lead to more efficient production of biofuels and...
View ArticleClean liquid fuel could reduce our reliance on non-renewable energy
For the first time, scientists have overcome the challenge of breaking down raw biomass without the need for chemical pre-treatment, and have produced record high amounts of clean liquid hydrocarbon...
View ArticleResearchers use sunlight to produce chemicals and energy
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have discovered a natural process they describe as "reverse photosynthesis," by which the energy in solar rays breaks down plant biomass rather than building...
View ArticleNew technology reduces transportation costs of heavy oil
The Mexican Oil Institute (IMP) has developed biosurfactants that reduce oil viscosity and lower operating costs. The technology allows for operational flexibility in the transport of crude oil through...
View ArticleSolving the biomass puzzle
Biomass holds great promise as a petroleum replacement, but unlocking its true potential remains a puzzle. A group of researchers at Iowa State University and the U.S Department of Energy's Ames...
View ArticleImproving poor soil with burned up biomass
Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science in Japan have shown that torrefied biomass can improve the quality of poor soil found in arid regions. Published in Scientific Reports,...
View ArticleBetter understanding could lead to more cost-effective production of...
Plant cell walls, which constitute the bulk of plant biomass, are diverse, complex, and dynamic in their structural composition and integrity. Cell walls are innately resistant to deconstruction by...
View ArticleFor 20 million years, the diversity of large terrestrial mammals depended on...
For more than 20 million years, the ups and downs of diversity in terrestrial large mammals were determined by primary production, i.e. net production of plant biomass. This pattern changed with the...
View ArticleSpecies-rich food webs produce biomass more efficiently
Researchers at the Senckenberg have discovered a feedback in complex food webs: Species-rich ecosystems favor large, heavy animals. Even though this increases the amount of plants consumed, the plant...
View ArticleBioenergy grass can withstand freezing temperatures
March 2012 was unusually warm. Biomass crops around the Midwest were well established and thriving. But when a late frost came in mid-April, all of that changed.
View ArticleEnzyme shows promise for efficiently converting plant biomass to biofuels
To make biofuels, tiny microbes can be used to break down plant cells. As part of that digestive process, specialized enzymes break down cellulose—a major molecule that makes plant cell walls rigid....
View ArticleRenewable plastic precursor could grow cellulosic biofuel industry
A team of chemical and biological engineers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has found a way to produce from biomass a valuable compound used in plastic production that they estimate could lower...
View ArticleBio-prospecting for better enzymes
When people hear about prospecting, they might imagine old forty-niners (miners) with pickaxes hunting for gold, or maybe an agent for the San Francisco 49ers (football team) scouting for new talent....
View ArticleFungal enzymes team up to more efficiently break down cellulose
One of the biggest barriers in the commercial production of sustainable biofuels is to cost-effectively break down the bioenergy crops into sugars that can then be converted into fuel. To reduce this...
View ArticleEcology insights improve plant biomass degradation by microorganisms
Microbes are widely used to break down plant biomass into sugars, which can be used as sustainable building blocks for novel biocompounds. Getting the right microbial community for this process is...
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