SAFFiRE Renewables Fuel broke ground on a pilot plant that represents a firm step toward meeting the goals of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Grand Challenge. The SAFFiRE plant, located at Conestoga Energy’s Arkalon Energy facility in Liberal, Kansas, will ultimately be capable of processing 10 tons of corn stover... Read more →

Blue Biofuels has successfully produced cellulosic ethanol in high yields from multiple biomass feedstocks using its proprietary Cellulose-to-Sugar (CTS) technology. This achievement is the result of processing biomass from king grass, sugar cane bagasse, and corn stover on the company’s upscaled CTS pilot line. The sugars produced from the CTS... Read more →

SAFFiRE Renewables LLC plans to break ground on its pilot plant to turn agriculture residue into a scalable biofuel business near Liberal, Kansas, in late 2024. In 2023, the company negotiated a license agreement for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s) deacetylation and mechanical refining (DMR) process, a technology seen... Read more →

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved registration for VertiGas20, a renewable gasoline product, to be sold as 20% blends in conventional gasoline to help mitigate transportation carbon emissions. VertiBlue Fuels, LLC, a 50/50 joint venture between Blue Biofuels and Vertimass, will start producing this renewable gasoline as one... Read more →

Southwest Airlines has a{acquired} SAFFiRE Renewables as part of the investment portfolio of its wholly owned subsidiary Southwest Airlines Renewable Ventures, LLC (SARV). SARV is dedicated to creating more opportunities for Southwest to obtain scalable sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). SAFFiRE is part of a project supported by the Department of... Read more →

Start-up Terragia Biofuel raised a $6-million seed round led by Engine Ventures and Energy Impact Partners (EIP). The company will use the capital to commercialize its novel biology-based approach to converting cellulosic biomass into ethanol and other products, expand its employee headcount and initiate partnerships with major biofuel producers. Terragia... Read more →

Honeywell and GranBio Technologies will combine Honeywell’s ethanol-to-jet (ETJ) technology (earlier post) with GranBio’s cellulosic ethanol AVAP technology to produce carbon-neutral sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from biomass residues at GranBio’s forthcoming US demonstration plant. GranBio’s patented AVAP process converts biomass, including forest and agricultural residues, to pure low-cost, low-carbon-intensity sugars,... Read more →

EcoCeres, an Asia-based bio-refinery company, announced its first shipment of 100% agricultural waste-produced cellulosic ethanol to the European markets, a milestone the company achieved after commissioning another facility in China. EcoCeres can produce a diverse range of renewable biofuels, covering Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), Hydro-treated Vegetable Oil (HVO) and Cellulosic... Read more →

Dow and New Energy Blue announced a long-term supply agreement in North America in which New Energy Blue will create bio-based ethylene from renewable agricultural residues. Dow expects to purchase this bio-based ethylene, reducing carbon emissions from plastic production, and using it in recyclable applications across transportation, footwear, and packaging.... Read more →

Nippon Paper Industries, Sumitomo and Green Earth Institute agreed to begin trilateral consideration of the first commercial production of cellulosic bioethanol from woody biomass in Japan and its development into bio-chemical products. Bioethanol is currently attracting attention as a renewable energy source and as feedstock for biofuels such as SAF... Read more →

Shell has agreed to buy a total of 3.25 billion liters (860k gallons US) of sugar-cane cellulosic ethanol under a long-term agreement with Brazil’s Raízen. The low-carbon fuel is expected to be produced by five plants that Raízen plans to build in Brazil, bringing its total portfolio of cellulosic ethanol... Read more →

VERBIO recently officially launched the first cellulosic RNG plant in the US. The VERBIO Nevada (Iowa) Biorefinery began producing renewable natural gas (RNG) on an industrial scale in December 2021. The facility is on track to achieve full-scale production of 7 million ethanol gallons equivalent (EGE) of RNG annually by... Read more →

Blue Biofuels (BIOF) and the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA ARS) are collaborating on optimizing the yields of Pennisetum hybridum, commonly known as king grass, a perennial grass biomass crop, that the Company is using as feedstock for its patented mechanocatalytic cellulose-to-sugar (CTS) process. The USDA... Read more →

VERBIO has commenced production at its new plant in Nevada, Iowa. The plant will generate biomethane from corn stover (maize straw), and is the first large-scale commercial plant in the US to use the technology developed by VERBIO. VERBIO acquired the mothballed cellulosic ethanol plant from DuPont, the previous operator,... Read more →

Petron Scientech Inc. (PSI) and SBI Bioenergy (SBI) have entered into an alliance agreement to license differentiated, integrated, energy-efficient, and sustainable technologies for biomass to green hydrogen and low carbon biofuels production. Under this agreement, the alliance will use Petron’s proprietary cellulosic ethanol (G2.0E) technology with a variety of locally... Read more →

California Ethanol + Power (CE+P) is partnering with the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), a Bioenergy Research Center of the US Department of Energy (DOE), to develop scalable next-generation renewable energy products using biomass from CE+P’s planned sugarcane ethanol facility in Imperial County, California. In addition, CE+P Permitting Manager Nathan M.... Read more →

In the US, ethanol production is limited in large part by its reliance on corn, which isn’t grown in large enough quantities to make up a significant portion of US fuel needs. To try to expand biofuels’ potential impact, a team of MIT engineers has now found a way to... Read more →

US Senator John Thune (R-SD) has re-introduced two bills intended to speed the adoption of biofuels. The first, with co-sponsor Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) would approve certain advanced biofuel registrations that have gone without approval by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) despite the fuels already being successfully used in at... Read more →

The first successful trial delivery of advanced cellulosic ethanol marks the start of the long-term cooperation between OMV, the integrated, international oil, gas and petrochemicals company headquartered in Vienna, and AustroCel Hallein GmbH. The Hallein-based bioethanol plant has an annual capacity of up to 35 million liters (9.2 million gallons... Read more →

Brazil-based GranBio announced a strategic alliance with NextChem, the subsidiary of Italian engineering giant Maire Tecnimont dedicated to the energy transition, to co-license its patented technology for the production of second-generation (2G) ethanol worldwide. The partnership will enable the commercialization of this technology globally, combining GranBio’s knowledge in biomass and... Read more →

Specialty chemical company Clariant and Eta Bio, a company of the Pavlovi family, running a leading business in the agricultural sector in Bulgaria, have signed a license agreement for Clariant’s sunliquid cellulosic ethanol technology. The agreement marks the fourth signed license deal for Clariant’s sunliquid technology. Eta Bio has been... Read more →

Researchers at Aarhus University (Denmark) have launched a project to produce cellulosic bioethanol via completely natural processes. They are looking for the solution in the intestines of pandas and slugs, and in ants’ fungus gardens—special enzymes and microorganisms that, for millions of years, have specialized in the breakdown of this... Read more →

A Rutgers-led team has developed a new biomass pretreatment process that could make it much cheaper to produce biofuels such as ethanol from plant waste and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. The approach, featuring an ammonia-salt-based solvent that rapidly turns plant fibers into sugars needed to make ethanol, works well... Read more →

Clariant, a focused and innovative specialty chemical company, Anhui Guozhen Group, a Chinese green energy company, and Chemtex Chemical Engineering, a multinational engineering company, signed a license agreement on sunliquid cellulosic ethanol technology. (Earlier post.) The Anhui Guozhen Group and Chemtex have agreed to form a joint venture with the... Read more →

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule that establishes the required renewable volumes under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program for 2020, and the biomass-based diesel volume for 2021. The EPA is committed to ensuring a net of 15 billion gallons of conventional biofuel is blended in 2020.... Read more →

POET-DSM Advanced Biofuels, LLC, a joint venture of Royal DSM and POET, LLC, will pause production of cellulosic biofuels at Project LIBERTY and shift to R&D focused on improving operational efficiency. This step is a result of EPA challenges with the implementation of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). The joint... Read more →

Clariant has conducted tests on approximately 30 tons of miscanthus provided by INA, Croatia’s leading oil and gas company. The miscanthus biomass was harvested and baled at the INA demonstration site in Croatia in February this year and shipped for processing to Clariant’s pre-commercial sunliquid plant in Straubing, Germany for... Read more →

EPA is granting 31 small refinery RFS exemptions for the 2018 compliance year, as well as 6 denials. The estimated volume of gasoline and diesel exempted is 13,420 million gallons; the estimated renewable volume obligations (RVO) exempted is 1,430 million RINs. The Clean Air Act (CAA) exempted small refineries from... Read more →

Commercially viable cellulosic ethanol plants has proven devilishly difficult to bring to fruition. The primary outlier from the list of efforts that have shut down over the past few years is POET/DSM’s Project Liberty (earlier post). In an editorial in the journal Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining, two POET team members... Read more →

Using a protein produced by a fungus that lives in the Amazon, Brazilian researchers have developed a molecule capable of increasing glucose release from biomass for fermentation. The findings are published in an open-access paper the journal Scientific Reports. One of the main challenges of second-generation biofuel production is identifying... Read more →

Researchers in China have developed a one-pot process for the direct conversion of cellulose to ethanol with a yield of 43.2 C% over a multifunctional catalyst Mo/Pt/WOx, which effectively catalyzes the tandem reactions of cellulose to ethylene glycol (EG) and then to ethanol. A paper on their work is published... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded a $2.2-million grant to researchers at Texas A&M AgriLife Research to investigate potential discoveries for waste products used in lignocellulosic biofuel production, turning them into valuable agents used in producing commercial products such as biodiesel and asphalt binding agents. Dr. Joshua Yuan,... Read more →

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt issued a proposed rule under the Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) program that would set the minimum amount of renewable fuels that must be supplied to the market in calendar year 2019, as well as the biomass based diesel volume standard for... Read more →

Researchers have discovered a novel enzyme (a β-glucosidase) in microorganisms living in the Brazilian Amazon that could boost efficiency of the sugarcane bagasse saccharification process, which accounts for up to 50% of the global costs of cellulosic ethanol production. The team isolated, characterized and reproduced the enzyme, proving it to... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) will award up to $3 million in funding for advanced biofuels, bioenergy, and biobased products available through the Biomass Research and Development Initiative (BRDI). DOE has selected two projects from the University of Tennessee and Northwestern University that will receive between $1 million to... Read more →

Researchers from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in China have developed a new catalyst with enhanced selectivity for a chemocatalytic approach they developed earlier for the production of cellulosic ethanol. In the original process, cellulose is first converted into methyl glycolate (MG) in methanol with the promotion of a... Read more →

Cellulose—the primary building block of the walls of most plant cells—is synthesized at the plasma membrane by cellulose synthase complexes (CSCs). The ability to deliver CSCs to discrete sites at the cell surface is critical for cellulose synthesis. Now,researchers at Penn State have identified the major steps in the process... Read more →

By studying and comparing the workhorse cellulose-degrading enzymes (cellobiohydrolases) of two fungi, researchers from the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have pinpointed regions on these enzymes that can be targeted via genetic engineering to help break down cellulose faster. A newly published open-access paper in Nature Communications describes... Read more →

Aemetis announced that it successfully built and operated an integrated cellulosic ethanol demonstration unit for more than 120 days of continuous operations with 94% uptime, meeting the requirements for a federal USDA 9003 Biorefinery Assistance Program guaranteed loan. In partnership with its key technology providers InEnTec and LanzaTech, Aemetis successfully... Read more →

Xinhua reports that China’s State Administration of Grain (SAG) said that China will expand production and consumption of bioethanol fuel this year as the country seeks more channels to use corn and grain stockpiles. Years of government support for corn farmers—paying Chinese corn producers more than twice the international price... Read more →

Canada-based Enerkem Inc., a leading waste-to-biofuels and chemicals producer, has completed a C$280-million (US$223 million) investment round—its largest to date. In addition to new investors BlackRock and Sinobioway, existing investors also participated in this financing. In January, Enerkem signed an agreement with Sinobioway Group worth more than C$125 million (US$100... Read more →

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is awarding $11.9 million (US$9 million) in funding for Australian biofuel company Ethanol Technologies Limited (Ethtec) to complete the development and demonstration of its advanced biofuel technology. As part of a $48-million (US$36.5 million) project, Ethtec aims to construct a $30-million (US$23-million) purpose-built pilot-scale... Read more →

UC Riverside researchers have developed a streamlined process that could finally make the ethanol production cost from abundant “second generation” plant wastes competitive with “first generation” ethanol made from sugars. A major historical barrier to low-cost production of ethanol from biomass is the low ethanol yields and titers that result... Read more →

POET-DSM Advanced Biofuels says it has achieved a major breakthrough in cellulosic biofuels production at its Project LIBERTY plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa. (Earlier post.) The company has solved the critical challenge in pretreatment, overcoming what has been the primary hurdle to commercialization for producers around the world. Project LIBERTY is... Read more →

Aemetis, Inc. announced that its Aemetis Advanced Products Keyes subsidiary signed a 20-year feedstock supply agreement to produce cellulosic ethanol at a former US Army munitions facility located in Riverbank, California, which is near the existing Aemetis biofuels plant in Keyes, California. The cellulosic ethanol biorefinery will use patented and... Read more →

Micro-organisms found in the wildfire-prone rainforests of India are an potential resources for biochemical production, as they are accustomed to the challenging conditions following a forest fire. The enzymes they produce are likely to also have a higher-than-normal resistance to the substances released from biomass in high-temperature industrial processes. An... Read more →

The Department of Energy (DOE), in partnership with Israel’s Ministry of Energy (MOE) and the Israel Innovation Authority, announced $4.8 million for five newly selected energy projects as part of the Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Energy program. The approved projects will leverage cost-share for a total project value... Read more →

Specialty chemicals company Clariant announced the approval by its Board of Directors to invest in a new full-scale commercial plant for the production of cellulosic ethanol from agricultural residues using its sunliquid technology. The new plant, with an annual production capacity of 50,000 tons, will be built in the southwestern... Read more →

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a Notice of Data Availability (NODA) to provide public notice and an opportunity to comment on potential reductions in the 2018 biomass-based diesel (BBD), advanced biofuel, and total renewable fuel volumes, and/or the 2019 biomass-based diesel volume under the Renewable Fuel Standard... Read more →

Clariant, a world leader in specialty chemicals, and Enviral, the largest producer of bioethanol in Slovakia, have signed a license agreement on sunliquid cellulosic ethanol technology. Enviral has acquired a license to use Clariant’s sunliquid technology as part of its goal to realize a full scale commercial cellulosic ethanol plant... Read more →