Several Sandia Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) researchers, in collaboration with others in Kentucky and India, have published, “Theoretical insights into the role of water in the dissolution of cellulose using IL/water mixed solvent systems,” which the editors selected for Journal of Physical Chemistry B’s Nov. 12th issue cover. The continued reliance of the global transportation energy [...]
Researchers at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) are working to transform biomass into energy-rich fuel molecules. Headquartered in Emeryville, California, the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) is now a member of the elite “100/ 500 Club,” having filed its 100th patent application and published its 500th scientific paper. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt) The Chemical [...]
In an article in Chemical Engineering, Blake Simmons (Senior Manager of Sandia’s Advanced Biomanufacturing Group and JBEI’s Chief Science & Technology Officer) talks about how the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) has scaled up biomass pretreatment technologies using ionic liquids (salts in a liquid state at ambient conditions) from the bench scale to the 100 L scale [...]
The DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) filed its 100th patent application and published its 500th scientific paper. Headquartered in Emeryville, California, the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) is now a member of the elite “100/ 500 Club,” having filed its 100th patent application and published its 500th scientific paper. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt) Established [...]
While ionic liquids (paired-ions salts that are liquid at room temperature) show great promise for liberating fermentable sugars from lignocellulose and improving advanced-biofuel economics, an even more promising candidate is now on the horizon—“bionic” liquids. Bionic liquids derived from lignin and hemicellulose show great promise for liberating fermentable sugars from lignocellulose. The current [...]
Sandia is working on a second generation of biofuels that can be refined from more abundant, less costly feedstocks. In July 2014, the DOE Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) released the short documentary film Bioenergy: America’s Energy Future, which highlights stories of individuals and companies who are passionate about achieving the promise of biofuels [...]
Sugars released from plant biomass by multifunctional glycoside hydrolases can be converted to oxime adducts suitable for quantitative analysis by nanostructure-initiator mass spectrometry (NIMS) and simulations of deconstruction kinetics. Art designers: Brian Fox and Daniel Strong. The oxime-based nanostructure-initiator mass spectrometry (NIMS) work of Kai Deng (in Sandia’s Biotechnology & Bioengineering Dept.) et al. [...]
Nature designed lignin, the tough woody polymer in the walls of plant cells, to bind and protect the cellulose sugars that plants use for energy. For this reason, lignin is a major challenge for those who would extract those same plant sugars and use them to make advanced biofuels. As part of their search for [...]
Now available on-line from the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) are two new, improved versions of a techno-economic model created in 2010 to accelerate development of next generation biofuels that are economically competitive with petroleum-based fuels. Incorporating the latest state-of-the-art technologies relevant to bioethanol production, these new wiki-based models simulate critical factors in the biorefinery process, [...]
The right combination of enzyme cocktail and ionic liquid pretreatment can be used to extract fermentable sugars from switchgrass in a single, wash-free step. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt) To enable technology transfer from DOE-supported research centers (such as the three BioEnergy Research Centers [BRCs]) to the commercial sector, DOE issued a SBIR/STTR (Small [...]
