Creation of a Cluster of Agromaterials for Plastics The Industry and Agro-Resources, Céréales Vallée and Plastipolis competitiveness clusters signed a partnership agreement for the Agriculture fair (which was held in Paris in February and March 2010). create France Green Plastics, "the Cluster of Agromaterials for the Plastics Industry". This cluster has […]

VITO studies the environmental impact of biofuels for public transport and service vehicles in Flanders At the request of the Department of Environment, Nature and Energy of the Flemish authorities, VITO (Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek ) analyzed the consumption and emission of three types of service car using […]

The European “biomass-energy” network continues via EUBIONET III After two first productive components (2002-2008), the European “biomass-energy” network continues through the EUBIONET III project. Financed mainly by the European Union, within the framework of the EIE program ("Intelligent Energy - Europe"), the project started in September 2008, for a duration of 3 years. [...]

Biofuels produced by roasting Roasting, the process used to roast coffee beans, could increase the energy content of major British energy crops by up to 20%. Indeed, scientists from the Faculty of Engineering Sciences at the University of Leeds looked at the behavior during combustion, after […]

CO2 soon to be recycled into fuel thanks to a biocatalyst? Carbon dioxide, long identified as the main culprit for global warming, could make a new virtue if a small American company succeeds in turning it into gasoline. At first glance, the company seems as crazy as that of […]

A Fischer-Tropsch pilot to produce 2nd generation biofuel The BtL pilot unit will be installed on the Bure-Saudron site, located in a territory located at the border of the departments of Haute-Marne and Meuse "Biomass to Liquid", the first of its kind in France. This will allow us to experiment with a sector […]

ISO standard for bioenergy sustainability criteria In response to the growing international interest in bioenergy, and faced with the absence of globally harmonized sustainability criteria, the ISO standardization organization has decided to develop a standard international conference on sustainability aspects linked to bioenergy. The development work will be done at […]

A small herb called Brachypodium would be of great help for research on organic fuels Brachypodium disachyon, a small purple herb from temperate regions advances research on bioenergy. John Vogel and Yong Gu, two researchers from the agronomic research service (ARS) of the research laboratory of Albania in California, will accelerate the […]

Switching from cellulose to small sugar molecules A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Carbon Research (MPI-KoFo) in Mühlheim-sur-la-Ruhr has developed a new method that makes it possible to cut up relatively easily cellulose in its constituent elements, sugars. This could open the door to the production of […]

Creation of a Prospective Reflection Workshop on the biomass of the future Called “VégA”, this workshop is part of a global context dominated by three major challenges: the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, development of substitutes for fossil hydrocarbons and the limited availability of renewable natural resources. He […]

"Biobased" Coca-Cola bottles: the ethylene glycol in the new Dasani water bottles will be derived from sugar and molasses. This year, Coca-Cola will introduce bottles for its Dasani brand water with up to 30% biobased content. Beverage bottles are typically produced from polyethylene terephthalate (PET), itself resulting from the reaction […]

Agriculture: the bet for green growth Launch in Haute-Normandie of a network dedicated to biomaterials, bioenergies and green chemistry. This network, which will be used to enhance non-food agricultural production (flax, rapeseed, hemp, miscanthus, etc.) has been baptized "Novéa". It will be officially launched on Thursday September 10, 2009 at […]

New process for dissolving wood for the paper, biofuels, textiles and clothing industry… An American-British collaboration between two scientists from the chemistry department of Queen's University in Belfast and researchers from the University of Alabama (United States) has made it possible to develop a new ecological process for dissolving wood from conifers or […]

Improving biomass pre-treatment techniques The development of second generation biofuels requires the development of technologies, in particular the pre-treatment of cellulosic biomass and the fermentation of sugars. The use of ionic liquids to dissolve lignocellulose and later to facilitate hydrolysis into sugars is promising but has encountered […]

Lignol announces the production of cellulosic ethanol from a new pilot biorefinery Lignol is a Canadian company undertaking the development of biorefinery technologies for the production of ethanol and other biochemical by-products from non-food biomass. Solvent-based pretreatment technology belonging to Lignol facilitates the rapid conversion of […]

Electricity and heat produced from biomass with a new gas production technology On August 3, 2009, the Federal Minister for the Environment Sigmar Gabriel made available approximately 3,5 million euros to the platform - technological form for bioenergy and methane (TBM, [1]), within the framework of the program […]

Hemp: a low-cost raw material that respects the environment Natural fibers have been used for a long time and successfully in insulation and construction materials, but also serve to reinforce composite materials for aeronautics and cars . Researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering in Potsdam-Bornim (ATB) as well as […]

Abandonment of the massive biofuels development project in Germany On April 4, 2008, Germany had to give up one of the pillars of its environmental policy: the massive development of biofuels. "All together, we have underestimated the problems," acknowledged the Federal Minister for the Environment, Sigmar Gabriel. An admission that condemns E10, the new […]

An astonishing “green” refinery called “Morgane” Created in 1995 by Hervé Balusson, Olmix is ​​a company specializing in the preparation of additives. Very early on, it oriented its strategy towards the development of natural additives, in particular based on clay, soon combined with green algae. It is from these raw materials that the R&D department of […]

Reconciling bioenergy production and nature protection For three and a half years, the PROGRASS project will explore the possibilities - economically profitable and ecologically acceptable - of using grasslands to produce bioenergy in Europe. Endowed with 3 million euros from the European Union, the […]

Termites at the pump? The second generation of biofuels should make it possible to produce bioethanol from lignocellulosic materials, in particular by enzymatic hydrolysis. Researchers at the University of Florida have looked for new types of enzymes in well-known wood-degrading agents, termites. They thus probed the intestine of […]

The diesel produced by mushrooms could be an alternative to conventional fuels and to the first generation biodiesel produced from vegetable oil. Called "mycofuel", this alternative was developed by Professor Gary Stobel of the University of Montana (United States). The fungus responsible for this natural diesel production is Gliocladium roseum. Gliocadium […]

Microalgae (from the Chlamydomonas family) to improve the functioning of ADIT Source BE biogas units The working group led by Prof. Gerd Klöck and Dr. Anja Noke, biotechnologists from the Institute for Environmental and Biological Techniques at the Specialized Higher School in Bremen, are focusing their work on the development of new […]