Novozymes Collaborates on Seaweed-to-Biofuels Project in India
Enzymes group Novozymes says it has created an “exploratory research agreement” with Sea6 Energy (Chennai, India), a start-up biotech firm, to jointly develop an enzymatic process for converting seaweed-based carbohydrates to sugar, which can then be fermented to produce ethanol for fuel, fine...

U.K. Spin-out Firm to Generate BioButanol from Whiskey Byproduct
Celtic Renewables (Edinburgh, U.K.), a biotech company developing a process for converting whiskey byproducts into biobutanol and other biochemicals, has been launched yesterday. The start-up company is a spin out from Napier University (Edinburgh). The fledgling company is now working with government...

Cradle-to-Cradle Manufacture: Flooring Producer Desso Lays Out New Approach
Desso (Waalwijk, the Netherlands), a manufacturer of carpets and flooring systems made from materials such as nylon 6, nylon 6,6 and polypropylene (PP), in 2007 changed its business model by adopting a production system based on Cradle to Cradle design principles. In this Cradle to Cradle approach the...

Linde to Codevelop CCS Project in U.K.
BOC, a subsidiary of Linde, has been brought in as a technology partner to codevelop a carbon capture and storage (CCS) system at the Drax coal fired power station (Selby, U.K.). BOC joins energy firm Drax (Selby) and energy infrastructure company Alstom (London) on the project. The Drax plant is the...

Endeavour Develops Process for Groundbreaking Liquid Cathode Fuel Cell
ACAL Energy (Runcorn, U.K.), a fuel cell technology company, has hired Endeavour Speciality Chemicals (Daventry, U.K.) to scale up a process for making a novel, liquid, non-precious metal cathode for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells to be used in automotive applications. Named FlowCath, the...

Research: Polymer-based System Breaks Records for Capture of CO2
A group of U.S. scientists say they have successfully used solid materials based on fumed silica impregnated with polyethylenimine (PEI), a readily available and inexpensive polymeric material, to increase the levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) captured direct from air or concentrated sources of CO2 such as the...

AFC Starts up Fuel Cell at AkzoNobel's Chlor-Alkali Plant (update)
AFC Energy (Cranleigh, U.K.) says its alkaline Beta fuel cell system for the first time is being used commercially to generate electricity from waste hydrogen. The system is being employed at AkzoNobel’s Bitterfeld, Germany chlor-alkali complex. The system consumes about 1kg of hydrogen to generate 20...

Separate Groups Vie for Solar Polymer World Record (update)
Solvay, in association with Imec (Leuven, Belgium,), a nanoelectronics research organization, and Polyera (Skokie, IL), an electronic materials supplier, claims to have achieved a new world-record efficiency of 8.3% for polymer-based organic solar cells. The solar cells are of a single junction type set in...

EU Unveils $108 Billion Research and Innovation Program
The European Commission has published plans to invest €80 billion ($108 billion) in research and innovation across the European Union between 2014 and 2020. Named Horizon 2020, the program is aimed at boosting sustainable growth and jobs in the region. It will provide funding for every stage of the...

The End of the International Year of Chemistry?
Oh no it’s not. Don't think for one minute that the International Year of Chemistry (IYC) has been pushed off into the long grass. The legacy of IYC is set to continue well beyond this year’s organized series of chemistry events and discussions; leading chemical companies have pledged to...