Cobalt completes successful butanol production run
Cobalt Technologies (Mountain View, CA), a developer of biobased chemicals, says it has completed production of over 100,000 liters of n-butanol at fermentation scale. This surpasses the previously obtained 10-liter bench scale and the 4,000 liter pilot scale, and the company says this benchmark is “a...

DuPont survey shows increasing preference for green products among urban Chinese
DuPont says a recent survey finds consumers in urban areas of China increasingly prefer consumer articles made from biobased materials if those are comparable to other products in price and quality. The survey also shows urban Chinese consumers are more confident in biobased products than consumers in North...

DuPont breaks ground on $200-million cellulosic ethanol plant
Slated for completion in mid-2014, the facility is expected to produce 30 million gal/yr of bioethanol from corn stover, a capital investment of about $7/gal....

National Academy of Sciences finds algae-based biofuels pose sustainability concerns
A recent National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report says the development of algae-based biofuels poses sustainability concerns. Issues include the large amount of water used for algae cultivation, and the magnitude of nutrients, including nitrogen, phosphorous, CO2, needed. This does not pose a...

Sojitz Acquires Asian Sales Rights to Braskem's Green Polyethylene
Sojitz Planet, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sojitz Corp., says it has acquired the sales rights to green polyethylene (PE) bioplastic made from sugarcane by Braskem. Sojitz Planet will sell this green PE in Japan and the rest of Asia/Pacific. The corporation aims to handle 20,000 m.t./year...

Gevo and Beta Renewables Sign JDA to Advance Cellulosic Isobutanol
Gevo (Englewood, CO) and Beta Renewables (Rivalta Scrivia, Italy) have signed a joint development agreement for an integrated process for the production of biobased isobutanol from cellulosic, non-food biomass. The project would integrate Beta Renewables’ Proesa technology­ for extracting sugar...

Elevance Raises $104 Million
Elevance Renewable Sciences (Woodbridge, IL) says it has raised $104 million in a Series E financing round. Elevance produces high performance ingredients for use in personal care products, detergents, lubricants and other specialty chemicals and fuel markets from renewable feedstocks. Lacustrine Limited via...

Gevo to Locate Asian Biobased Isobutanol Unit in Malaysia
Gevo (Englewood, CO) has signed a collaboration agreement with representatives from the Malaysian government’s East Coast Economic Region Development Council (ECERDC), the Malaysian Biotechnology Corp. (BiotechCorp; Kuala Lumpur), and the state government of Terengganu, Malaysia, to site a cellulosic...

Edeniq Starts Ethanol
Edeniq (Visalia, CA) says it has started operations at a corn-to-cellulosic migration (CCM) pilot biorefinery at its headquarters at Visalia, CA. The plant has the capacity to convert two dry tons/day of feedstock into cellulosic sugars and 50,000 gal/year cellulosic...

KBR Awarded Contract for DuPont’s Cellulosic Ethanol Plant
KBR says it has been awarded a contract by DuPont for engineering and procurement services for DuPont’s previously announced cellulosic ethanol plant at Nevada, IA. KBR will provide front-end engineering, detailed engineering, and procurement services for the plant.   The ethanol facility...