Avfuel Corporation is making a multimillion-dollar investment in Alder Fuels—a company that is developing technologies for producing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at scale by converting abundant biomass into sustainable low-carbon, drop-in replacement crude oil that can be used in existing refineries to produce aviation fuel. In September 2021, United and... Read more →

Arbor Renewable Gas LLC, a Houston-based company formed in 2019 that produces renewable gasoline and green hydrogen from wood waste and forest residue (earlier post), is evaluating West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana for a planned $800-million manufacturing and distribution facility employing carbon capture and sequestration emissions-reduction technology. Operating as Magnolia... Read more →

Chevron Corporation completed its previously announced acquisition of Renewable Energy Group (REG) following approval by REG stockholders. (Earlier post.) The new Chevron segment will be called Chevron Renewable Energy Group. We have brought together companies with complementary capabilities, assets, and customer relationships to make Chevron one of the leading renewable... Read more →

A team at Chalmers University in Sweden has analyzed the results of the integration of a chemical looping gasification (CLG) process with a Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) process and found that this biomass-to-liquids process can produce FT crude with net-negative CO2 emissions. An open-access paper on the study appears in the... Read more →

Researchers from Peking University and SINOPEC have developed a one-post method for the synthesis of C6+ branched compounds from isopropanol condenstation on Ni/MoC catalysts. The branched-chain selectivity in C6+ and nonnecessity of H2 give this route advantage in high-octane gasoline blendstock production. Isopropanol can be derived from lignocellulose, making it... Read more →

Gevo has entered into a partner agreement with Google Cloud to measure and verify the efficacy of next-generation biofuels across the supply chain via full lifecycle sustainability data tracking. Utilizing technology developed by Verity Tracking , a division of Gevo, the collaboration is expected to enable users to track and... Read more →

A team at the University of Madison-Wisconsin studied critical sooting equivalence ratios and subsequent particulate formation during spark-ignition combustion for blends of ethanol, isobutanol (2-methyl-1-propanol), and methylbutenol (2-methyl-3-buten-2-ol) with gasoline using premixed prevaporized (PMPV) fueling. Broadly, they found that increases in alcohol content consistently decreased the chemical sooting tendency and... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced $59 million to accelerate the production of biofuels and bioproducts to reduce emissions in hard-to-decarbonize sectors. (DE-FOA-0002638) Marine and aviation sectors require higher energy densities to avoid frequent stops to refuel for long flights, international shipping routes, and cross-country rail routes, making these... Read more →

Researchers from Washington State University (WSU) and the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have devised an artificial enzyme that digests lignin, which has stubbornly resisted previous attempts to develop it into an economically useful energy source. An open-access paper on their work is published in Nature Communications.... Read more →

Cresta Funds Management (Cresta) has chosen Topsoe’s HydroFlex solution for revamping the Braya Renewable Fuels refinery (Braya) in Newfoundland, Canada. The refinery will produce up to 18,000 barrels per day of Renewable Diesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) initially; the capacity will increase further in various stages of expansion. The... Read more →

Together with its partner Nordic Marine Oil, Neste is piloting a new Neste Marine 0.1 Co-processed marine fuel in Scandinavia, a solution helping the maritime sector to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The ISCC PLUS-certified marine fuel enables up to 80% GHG emission reduction over the lifecycle compared to... Read more →

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company announced a new formulation of its popular Endurance WHA waste haul tire made with a renewable soybean oil compound. The Endurance WHA is now made with soybean oil, which replaces a portion of the petroleum-based materials used in its production. The soybean oil in... 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 →

Asahi Kasei has developed a system to calculate the carbon footprint of products (CFP) for the synthetic rubber and elastomers products Asadene, Tufdene, Asaprene, Tufprene, Asaflex, Tuftec, and S.O.E. with CFP data provision to customers scheduled to begin in June 2022. CFP visualization is achieved utilizing the DEEP (Data Exploration... Read more →

Yokohama Tire Corporation (YTC), a subsidiary of Yokohama Rubber, will be supplying YOKOHAMA tires to about 18 cars competing in the 100th Pikes Peak International Hill Climb to be held on 26 June. The supplied tires will include the first provision of YOKOHAMA’s ADVAN A052 street sports tires made from... Read more →

The BMW Group is using innovative technologies in its efforts to improve sustainability and taking advantage of new options to conserve resources and reduce emissions from painting bodywork. The BMW Group is the first automotive manufacturer worldwide to use matt paints made from biomass instead of crude oil at its... Read more →

Parkland, an independent supplier and marketer of fuel and petroleum products and a leading convenience store operator, plans to increase renewable fuel production at its Burnaby Refinery in British Columbia. The company said it will expanding existing co-processing volumes to approximately 5,500 barrels per day, and build a stand-alone renewable... Read more →

Phillips 66 made a final investment decision Wednesday to move forward with Rodeo Renewed, the project to convert its San Francisco Refinery in Rodeo, California, into one of the world’s largest renewable fuels facilities. The project, which recently received approval from Contra Costa County (earlier post), is expected to cost... Read more →

Researchers at the University of Michigan, with colleagues from Michigan State University and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany, report that high surface area silicon carbide (SiC) w/wo 13 wt. % hard carbon (SiC/HC, SiC/O), derived from the carbothermal reduction of silica-depleted rice hull ash (SDRHA), can function as... Read more →

Methanol—a bio-based platform molecule that can be used directly as a fuel or fuel additive, and can also be used to produce bulk chemicals and drop-in fuels—is currently mainly produced from methane and coal via an indirect syngas route. Now, a team of researchers in China reports a novel approach... Read more →

Researchers from the University of Dayton, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Natural Resources Canada have generated a lignin-based jet fuel (LJF) blend component composed of mostly C6–C18 mono-, di-, and tri-cycloalkanes. The product could complement five existing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) pathways (ASTM D7566 annexes) to enable a 100%... Read more →

A team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has developed a new computational model of a two-stroke scaled marine engine, with reduced chemical mechanisms for diesel, biodiesel, bio-oil, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). In a new open-access study published in the journal Fuel, the ORNL researchers used their model to... Read more →

The Biden Administration announced several steps to spur the development and adoption of homegrown biofuels. $700 million for biofuels producers: As part of the Pandemic Assistance for Producers initiative, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) will provide up to $700 million in funding through a new Biofuel Producer Program. The... Read more →

Metsä Fibre, part of Metsä Group, and Veolia recently signed a long-term partnership agreement on the refining of crude methanol generated in pulp production at the Äänekoski bioproduct mill into commercial biomethanol. As part of this cooperation, Veolia will build a crude methanol refinery in connection with Metsä Fibre’s Äänekoski... Read more →

Raven SR, a US-based renewable fuels company (earlier post), plans to build a waste-to-hydrogen production facility in Aragón, Spain, following the opening of its subsidiary Raven SR Iberia in Zaragoza, announced earlier this month. The Raven SR project in Aragón will produce 1,600 metric tons per year of renewable hydrogen... Read more →

Toyota Motor is entering three differently fueled vehicles in the ENEOS Super Taikyu Series 2022 Powered by Hankook Round 1 Suzuka 5-Hour Endurance Race (Suzuka 5-Hour Race), which takes place from 19 to 20 March 2022: a hydrogen engine-equipped Corolla, a new GR86-based vehicle that uses a biomass-derived carbon-neutral fuel... Read more →

Sustainable materials leader Genomatica and Japan-based diversified global manufacturer Asahi Kasei announced a strategic partnership to commercialize renewably-sourced nylon 6,61 made from Genomatica’s bio-based HMD (hexamethylenediamine, also abbreviated as HMDA) building block. Asahi Kasei looks to this partnership to support its goal to be first-to-market with a more sustainable nylon... Read more →

Raven SR, a renewable fuels company (earlier post), announced the closing of a strategic investment from Samsung Ventures, expanding Raven SR’s reach into the global market, especially in Asia-Pacific region. Samsung Ventures’ strategic investment illustrates heightened demand for scalable renewable fuel production to respond to climate change concerns, Raven SR... Read more →

Researchers in China report the synthesis of jet-fuel range C10 and C15 polycyclic alkanes and aromatics with furfuryl alcohol and isoprene, two platform compounds which can be derived from lignocellulose. An open-access paper on their work appears in the RSC journal Green Chemistry. Cycloalkanes (especially polycycloalkanes) and aromatics—with their higher... Read more →

bp has begun producing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from used cooking oil in co-processing process with crude oil at its plant in Lingen, Germany. This is the first industrial production facility in Germany to use this process for SAF production based on biomass waste and residues. Fats, Oils and Greases... Read more →

A team of scientists from LanzaTech, Northwestern University and the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have engineered a microbe to convert molecules of industrial waste gases, such as carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, into acetone and isopropanol (IPA). These widely used chemicals serve as the basis of thousands... Read more →

Lummus Technology and Synthos S.A. have reached a major milestone in the development of advanced bio-butadiene technology. After completing a successful feasibility study in 2021, Lummus and Synthos have concluded that the bio-butadiene technology is ready for implementation, and the companies have agreed to move into the engineering and design... Read more →

Emerging Fuels Technology (EFT), a technology company focused on methods for producing synthetic fuels from feedstocks such as natural gas, flared gas, biogas, biomass, municipal solid waste, CO2 and more, introduced its Maxx Jet and Maxx Diesel proprietary methods, which employ a unique catalyst system made for EFT by Haldor... Read more →

Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have shown that making carbon fiber composites with bio-based epoxies and an anhydride hardener makes the material fully recyclable by introducing linkages that are more easily degraded. The recycling process—called methanolysis—can be selectively triggered at room temperature without degrading the quality or... Read more →

The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) has released a report prepared by the consultancy Cerulogy that explores the potential market and environmental impacts of increased capacity for renewable diesel produced by hydrotreating oils and fats in the US. The United States currently supports renewable diesel supply through the federal... Read more →

Blue Biofuels, Inc. reports that it has achieved full conversion ( 99% + ) of king grass cellulosic material to water soluble sugars on a repeatable basis. This conversion occurs with a reaction time of less than one minute. This achievement was accomplished with the company’s upgraded 4th generation CTS... Read more →

ExxonMobil is acquiring a 49.9% stake in Biojet AS, a Norwegian biofuels company that plans to convert forestry and wood-based construction waste into lower-emissions biofuels and biofuel components. Biojet AS plans to develop up to five facilities to produce the biofuels and biofuel components. The company anticipates commercial production to... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has released a new Request for Information (RFI) on the scale-up and demonstration of renewable fuels. The RFI, titled “Overcoming Barriers to Renewable Fuel Scale-Up and Demonstration,” (DE-FOA-0002615) seeks input from biofuels producers and technology developers about their readiness to scale process technologies to... 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 →

Start-up Mote is establishing its first facility to convert wood waste into hydrogen fuel while capturing, utilizing, and sequestering CO2 emissions resulting from its process. With the engineering work of their first facility underway, Mote expects to produce approximately seven million kilograms of carbon-negative hydrogen and remove 150,000 metric tons... 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 →

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a package of actions setting biofuel volumes for the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program for years 2020, 2021, and 2022, and introducing regulatory changes intended to enhance the program’s objectives. For 2022, EPA is proposing the highest total volumes yet; the proposed volumes... Read more →

A team of researchers from the US NSF Center for Sustainable Polymers based at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities has demonstrated the use of a dual cellular–heterogeneous catalytic strategy to produce olefins from glucose. Wang et al. These renewable liquids could serve as a more sustainable replacement for today’s... Read more →

Asahi Kasei, a diversified Japanese multinational company, concluded an agreement with Shell Eastern Petroleum (Pte) Ltd. regarding the supply of butadiene derived from plastic waste and biomass. Asahi Kasei plans to begin producing and marketing sustainable solution-polymerized styrene-butadiene rubber (S-SBR) using sustainable butadiene at its plant in Singapore by the... Read more →

Gevo signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Sweetwater Energy, Inc., regarding the use of sustainably sourced agricultural residues and woody biomass as a feedstock for producing cellulosic alcohols and energy-dense renewable liquid hydrocarbons. As outlined in the MoU, Sweetwater plans to build, own and operate a facility adjacent to... Read more →

Velocys plc announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Velocys Renewables LLC, has entered into its first offtake agreement for the sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to be produced at the planned Bayou Fuels biorefinery project in Mississippi with Southwest Airlines. The agreement covers the purchase by Southwest of an expected 219... Read more →

Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd., Subaru Corporation, Toyota Motor Corporation, Mazda Motor Corporation, and Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. jointly announced that, toward the achievement of carbon neutrality, they will take on the challenge of expanding fuel options through the use of internal combustion engines at the (three-hour) Super Taikyu Race in... Read more →

Energy Vault, a company developing grid-scale gravity energy storage solutions, has entered into an energy storage system agreement with DG Fuels, a developer of renewable hydrogen and biogenic-based, synthetic sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and diesel fuel. Under the terms of the agreement, Energy Vault agreed to provide 1.6 gigawatt hours... Read more →

The US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) has published a notice of intent (DE-FOA-0002637) to issue a second “Scale-Up” Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) (DE-FOA-0002638). This FOA, funded by the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), will aim to accelerate the scale-up of biofuel and bioproduct biorefineries.... Read more →

Emerging Fuels Technology (EFT), a technology company focused on transforming a number of waste sources of carbon into fuels and chemicals that greatly reduce emissions while generating profits (earlier post), has launched a Regulation A+ equity funding campaign, following the qualification of its Form 1-A offering circular by the US... Read more →