Pecologix Political Ecology Blotter

Here are a few notable projects. Turns out that researchers at the Department of Energy’s BioEnergy Science Center, located Caldicellulosiruptor obsidiansis, a naturally occurring bacterium, onsite at Yellowstone, Sure enough, it thrives at extremely high temperatures, breaks down organic material such as sticks and leaves in its natural environment, and scientists hope to transfer this [...]

The design of an ionic liquid that has the ability to dissolve cellulose has been attempted from the viewpoint of a cellulase. N,N-diethyl-N-(2-methoxyethyl)-N-methylammonium alanine ([N221ME][Ala]) is a good solvent for cellulose. Dissolution in [N221ME][Ala] converts the crystalline structure of cellulose from Type I to II, which is known to be a form easily digested by cellulases. [...]

In 2009, a team of chemists led by Johannes Lercher at the Technical University of Munich in Germany used a combination of a palladium catalyst and a phosphoric acid catalyst to upgrade bio-oil into fuel-grade hydrocarbons. While in 2010, chemists from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, US, led by George Huber, used a combination of a [...]

KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 28, 2012): Palm oil biofuel has failed to meet greenhouse gas saving standards to qualify for the US renewable fuels programme, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said, dealing another blow for southeast Asian producers in search of new markets.The EPA said in a regulatory filing on late Friday that palm oil converted [...]

A new fuel additive, namely solketal tert-butyl ether (STBE), was developed and optimized under continuous flow conditions using a Corning® Advanced-Flow™ glass reactor. STBE was obtained in two steps from glycerol, a renewable building-block produced in large amount in the processing of biodiesel. The advantages of the highly engineered Corning glass reactor included high mixing [...]

The successful strategy to produce cellulolytic enzymes includes both microorganism selection and improved fermentation process conditions. This work describes the isolation, screening and selection of biomass-degrading fungi species from the Amazon forest and analyzes the enzymatic complex produced by a selected strain of Aspergillus fumigatus cultivated using different agro-industrial residues (wheat bran, sugarcane bagasse, soybean [...]

Prospecting macroalgae (seaweeds) as feedstocks for bioconversion into biofuels and commodity chemical compounds is limited primarily by the availability of tractable microorganisms that can metabolize alginate polysaccharides. Here, we present the discovery of a 36–kilo–base pair DNA fragment from Vibrio splendidus encoding enzymes for alginate transport and metabolism. The genomic integration of this ensemble, together [...]