Brazil’s CTBE signs MOU with York’s Biorenewables Development Centre

In the UK, Brazil’s National Laboratory of Science and Technology of Bioethanol (CTBE) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Biorenewables Development Centre (BDC), based in York.

For the past five years, plant biologists, geneticists and green chemists from across Europe have been working with CTBE experts on sugarcane breeding and bioethanol production, in a research project led by the University of York. Their aim has been to improve the efficiency of bioethanol processing from plant material, so that less land is used in its production.

More recently, the BDC has been building on this research by using its demonstration-scale processing facilities to test new energy crop varieties and new extraction methods. The BDC has now signed an MOU with CTBE to further cooperate on research and development related to bio-based fuels and chemicals.