In Amsterdam, Biotic has raised €2 million in a seed round that the bioplastics startup will use to build a plant, optimize processes, and increase production capacity. Biotic’s poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) thermoplastic polymers fit a wide range of plastic applications, from flexible to ruggedized, and are produced using macroalgae as feedstock. Macroalgae can be naturally grown in […]
Oceans are the largest untapped growth opportunity for biomass and that macroalgae is the quintessential ocean crop, according to ARPA-E. But, it says that with the current state of technology, it will never scale to meet energy and CO2 capture demands. So what to do? That’s where the MARINER program comes in. Marc von Keitz, […]
In South Korea, the joint research team of POSTECH and Seoul National University developed a new microorganism, which they named as Vibrio sp. dhg that they have successfully demonstrated can be a promising microbial platform for the biorefinery of brown macroalgae which can replace starch-crop biomass. Continuing efforts on studying utilization of non-edible biomass have […]
The projects that comprise ARPA-E’s MARINER (Macroalgae Research Inspiring Novel Energy Resources) program seek to develop the tools to enable the United States to become a global leader in the production of marine biomass. Presently, macroalgae, or seaweed, is primarily used as food for human consumption, but there is a growing opportunity for the production […]
In Mexico, falling a recent call by a researcher at one Mexican university to find ways to create value out of the sargassum algae that are polluting the Caribbean and Mexican coasts, a researcher at the Renewable Energy Unit under of the Center for Scientific Research of Yucatán announced he had been working to use […]
In Colorado, Colorado State University project to grow and harvest ocean macroalgae for biofuel production has received support from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). ARPA-E has poured over $22 million into their Macroalgae Research Inspiring Novel Energy Resources (MARINER) program, with the aim of establishing the U.S. as a leader in […]
In the UK, researchers at the University of Greenwich have published a study that takes a critical view to opportunities for macroalgae production for biofuels in the British Isles, in particular for the MacroBioCrude processing pipeline for the sustainable manufacture of liquid hydrocarbon fuels from seaweed in the UK. The production of biofuel from seaweed […]
In California, biofuel to run cars and generators could come from large swaths of seaweed grown in the open ocean. That’s the vision of a new project being led by Marine BioEnergy, Inc., in collaboration with PNNL and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California, San Diego. Marine BioEnergy has proposed a patented […]
In the UK, a study to research biodiesel production from macroalgae has been put on hold due to a lack of algae. The project was developed to manage a problem that has apparently disappeared. Dunbar Shore and Harbour Neighbourhood Group (DSHNG), Dr Alastair Sutherland, of Glasgow Caledonian University, and Dunbar Marine Resources Ltd were planning […]
In Chile earlier this month, Bio Architecture Lab broke ground on an experimental pilot facility producing ethanol from Macrocystis pyrifera (macro algae). Macroalgae: that’s seaweed, and more about why macro algae is really, really important, in a moment. The Pilot Facility The facility, expected to be operational in 2012 will allow the company to demonstrate […]
