In Wisconsin, aromatic compounds are the starting material for a wealth of useful medications, such as aspirin and morphine. Yet, many of these chemicals come from fossil fuels because it’s hard to get plants to make enough of them to harvest economically. Others are essential human nutrients and can only be obtained through our food […]
In Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers demonstrated a new process for transforming a plentiful Wisconsin waste – the solid leftovers of cow manure – into fatty acids, energy-rich molecules that can be used to make biodiesel, green jet fuels, and a wide range of important chemicals. Civil and environmental engineering graduate student Abel T. Ingle, […]
In Wisconsin, Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center scientists and collaborators at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have described a pathway for furan fatty acid production in bacteria and other cells, which could substitute for petroleum-based products including fuel, engine lubricant, medicines and food additives. Fatty acids, the compounds that give a diet rich in leafy greens […]
In Wisconsin, researchers at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison developed a method to combine traits from up to six different yeast species in a single hybrid strain — a yeast that could carry more tools for a specific job, such as producing biofuels. The idea is to combine as […]
In Wisconsin, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently developed a pathway with the potential to convert biomass, like wood chips or grasses, into a widely used industrial solvent and aim to expand this work to produce an array of sustainable chemicals. The researchers developed chemical processes that convert lignocellulosic biomass, essentially dried plant matter, […]
In Wisconsin, researchers at UW–Madison and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center developed an inexpensive, industry-compatible process to produce high yields of the versatile chemical HMF – 5-hydroxymethylfurfural, which is used to make many bio-based chemicals, plastics and fuels. The team’s research shows that the process is simple and compatible with the existing infrastructure in […]
In Wisconsin, a study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center compared two processes for producing biofuels from corn stover: biological conversion to ethanol (BCE) and catalytic conversion to alkenes (CCA) and found that carbon efficiency isn’t the only factor for determining promising strategies for the production of […]
In Wisconsin, a team based at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center found clues in red-hued yeasts that could help harness the synthesis pathway for large-scale production of isobutanol as a biofuel. A red pigment called pulcherrimin, naturally produced by several strains of wild yeasts, is synthesized in part through […]
In Michigan, researchers from Michigan Technological University, University of Tennessee, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Michigan State University are looking at Wisconsin switchgrass to better understand the costs and benefits to harvesting at various points in the season. Comparing data from samples collected every two to three weeks from the switchgrass fields against biofuel yield data […]
In Wisconsin, researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and several Department of Energy laboratories have identified two changes to a single gene that can make the yeast tolerate the pretreatment chemicals. They published their findings recently in the journal Genetics. The researchers used the gene-editing tool CRISPR to alter a strain of an ionic liquid-susceptible […]
