Biorefinery
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Pilot Plant Demonstrates the Potential to Co-Process Biomass Streams with Petroleum
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It’s Saturday and I am still working on my Biomaterials newsletter (poor me!) but I just want to post this press release from the US DOE as I find this technology very interesting. Cut and paste story below: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), together with leading petroleum refining technologies supplier W.R. Grace, and leading…
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Bio-based polyamides update
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I’ve been always monitoring activities from the bio-polyamides sector as I consider the nylon industry a high-potential area for bio-based chemicals. Here’s a slide from a presentation I gave early this year featuring various building blocks and intermediates required to produce a certain polyamide. The green arrows indicate current R&D/commercial production for bio-based alternatives. But of course,…
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First bio-BDO commercial plant opens
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The world’s first sugar-based 1,4 butanediol plant has finally opened as Mater-Biotech, a 100% company owned by Italian bioplastic producer, Novamont, started its 30 ktpa bio-BDO plant in Bottrighe di Adria (Rovigo, Italy), which uses Genomatica’s process technology. The initial capacity of the plant was targeted at 18 ktpa, but this was expanded to 30…
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Renmatix bags $14m from Bill Gates, Total
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Renmatix announced its recipient of a $14 million investment led by Bill Gates and Total, which will reportedly help drive towards the first wave of Renmatix licensees building Plantrose-enabled biorefineries in diverse global markets such as Canada, India, Malaysia, the US, etc. The Plantrose process uses supercritical water to reduce costs in conversion of biomass…
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LanzaTech produces jet fuel via low carbon ethanol
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The blog does not usually reports as much on biofuels but it has been awhile since we last posted about activities from LanzaTech. The company recently announced that it has produced the world’s first jet fuel (around 1,500 gallons) based on LanzaTech’s CO-to-ethanol fermentation process. The jet fuel reportedly passed all initial performance tests with…
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New BIO Report: Renewable Chemical Commercialization
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Industry trade organization, BIO, has released a new report featuring snapshots of the renewable chemical industry, with profiles of companies that are commercializing new bio-based chemicals/materials including production capacity. The report is intended to illustrate the potential of this industry, which according to McKinsey & Co. in the report, is estimated to make up 11%…
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Tesoro acquires Virent
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And technology acquisitions continue…. Oil refining company, Tesoro Corporation, announced today that it will acquire renewable fuels and chemical company Virent to support its success in bringing biofuels technology to commercial scale. Tesoro’s renewable fuels strategy is to foster the development of high-quality, lower-carbon, renewable feedstocks and blendstocks that can either be co-processed in existing refineries or…