#Extra-hairy microbes make biodiesel sustainable With the help of Geobacter microbes, biodiesel plants may be able to stop creating hazardous wastes
and eliminate fossil fuel from their production process. The platform, which uses microbes to glean ethanol from glycerol
and has added the benefit of cleaning up the wastewater, will allow producers to reincorporate the ethanol
and the water into the fuel-making process, says Gemma Reguera, Michigan State university microbiologist and one of the study coauthors. ith a saturated glycerol market,
traditional approaches see producers pay hefty fees to have hauled toxic wastewater off to treatment plants,
she says. y cleaning the water with microbes on-site, wee come up with a way to allow producers to generate bioethanol,
which replaces petrochemical methanol. At the same time, they are taking care of their hazardous waste problem. AIRYBACTERIA The results,
Geobacter are naturally occurring microbes that have proved promising in cleaning up nuclear waste as well in improving other biofuel processes.
These hairlike appendages are the managers of electrical activity during a cleanup and biofuel production. First
The next step, the team searched for partner bacteria that could ferment it into ethanol while generating byproducts that edthe Geobacter.
she adds. ne bacterium ferments the glycerol waste to produce bioethanol, which can be reused to make biodiesel from oil feedstocks.
Geobacter removes any waste produced during glycerol fermentation to generate electricity. It is a win-win situation.
to develop industrial-sized units that could handle the capacities of a full-scale biodiesel plant.
The next step will be field tests with a Michigan-based biodiesel manufacturer i
#New battery turns wasted heat into energy Stanford university rightoriginal Studyposted by Dan Stober-Stanford on May 22 2014researchers have developed a new battery technology that captures low-temperature waste heat
#Cheaper membrane filters natural gas and oil Engineers have developed a new gas separation membrane that could make extracting impurities from oil and natural gases easier and less expensive.
crude oil comes out of the ground with sulfur. If the amount of sulfur is greater than 0. 5 percent the crude is considered our.
and is used commonly for processing into gasoline, kerosene, and high-quality diesel. raditionally we have operated just off sweet crudes,
In order for the ourcrude to be refined into gasoline the sulfur has to be removed, which is done currently through hydro treating,
an expensive process that in turn leads to higher-priced gasoline. ou need hydrogen in order to sweeten crudes,
and human activities, such as leakage from natural gas systems and the raising of livestock. uman activities such as agriculture, fossil fuel combustion, wastewater management,
and use that energy to fuel autonomous walking along the carbon nanotube trackchoi says. The core is made of an enzyme that cleaves off part of a strand of RNA.
and biofuels industries using technology that is already well-established for cellulose-based materials. ome of the byproducts of the paper industry now go to making biofuels
another process to use the leftover cellulose to make a composite materialmoon says. he cellulose crystals are more difficult to break down into sugars to make liquid fuel.
and Energy project and the Department of energy s Light-Material Interactions in Energy conversion Center supported the work along with the National Science Foundation and the Research Triangle Solar fuels Institute.
which typically relies on seismic waves to search for underwater oil and natural gas. Industryâ#efforts could be aided by network of interconnected devices working together. e could even use it to monitor fish
#Nanoribbon material keeps gases captive Rice university rightoriginal Studyposted by Mike Williams-Rice on October 11 2013an enhanced polymer could make vehicles that run on compressed natural gas more practical and even prolong the shelf life of bottled beer
and make it impermeable to gastour says. his becomes increasingly important as automakers think about powering cars with natural gas.
Metal tanks that can handle natural gas under pressure are often much heavier than the automakers would like. e says the material could help to solve longstanding problems in food packaging too. emember
Solvents are liquid chemicals often petroleum-based that are used widely to dissolve solid materials. They are found in paints thinners aerosol sprays dyes marking pens adhesives and other products.
and developed the ability to react with oxide minerals rather than breathe oxygen as we do to convert organic nutrients into biological fuel.
and convert it into biological fuel their excess electrons flow into the carbon filaments and across to the positive electrode
The phosphorus fuels the fixing of nitrogen carried out by blue-green algae also known as cyanobacteria. he phosphorus-rich nitrogen-poor water is a boon to cyanobacteria that can fix their own nitrogensigman says. y growing more rapidly the nitrogen-fixers
For the purposes of this experiment the researchers placed silica##manganese oxide eadson the matchstick material and introduced hydrogen peroxide as the chemical fuel in one particular place.
but a high dose of ethanol can blunt their fear according to new research. These findings may pave the way for new methodologies for understanding anxiety
and that this preference can be abolished by exposing the fish to ethanol. Scary robotporfiri and Macri along with students Valentina Cianca and Tiziana Bartolini hypothesized that robots could be used to induce fear as well as affinity
To determine whether alcohol would affect fear responses the researchers exposed separate groups of fish to different doses of ethanol in water.
Ethanol has been shown to influence anxiety-related responses in humans rodents and some species of fish.
The zebrafish exposed to the highest concentrations of ethanol showed remarkable changes in behavior failing to avoid the predatory robot.
Acute administration of ethanol causes no harm and has no lasting effect on zebrafish.##These results are further evidence that robots may represent an exciting new approach in evaluating
and evaluated whether the results obtained therein were sensitive to ethanol administration. They placed test subjects in a two-chamber tank with one well-lit side and one darkened side to establish which conditions were preferable.
Ethanol exposure significantly modulated these fear responses as well abolishing the preference for the light compartment
Among ethanol-exposed fish there were many more who were unaffected by the robotic predator preferred the dark compartment
Three groups of fish were treated with varying doses of ethanol in water#zero percent (control group) 0. 25 percent and 1 percent by volume.
The two ethanol-exposed groups deviated significantly from this pattern spending more time in other regions of the tank.
The process for creating Portland cement a key ingredient in modern concrete requires fossil fuels to burn calcium carbonate (limestone) and clays at about 1450 degrees Celsius (2642 degrees Fahrenheit.
When they detect the current they need for navigation they power back on slip into the current then power off again to conserve fuel as the current carries them to a target location.
although just as important considering that the warm moist air on the ocean surface provides fuel for hurricanes.
Fuel Since the Biolite will burn almost any biomass fuel; from wood, pine cones, leaves, pellets, rice husks, even dung, it means fuel need not be carried,
unlike bottles for petroleum or gas burners that cannot be carried on airplanes and must be sourced at destination.
whereby the thin gas layer that burns around a solid fuel is separated and added to oxygen to burn more efficiently.
and the vent open to allow oxygen flow before the fire is started using whatever forest fuels are available.
it's therefore easy to add more fuel simply by lifting the pan and popping more in.
or less fuel, will create a smaller flame for simmering. When you wish to extinguish it you can
either allow the fan to keep adding oxygen till all the fuel runs out, or by swilling the coals in any remaining cooking water and pouring into a small hole nearby.
As there is no dependency on fuel or power it is a great emergency preparedness tool,
He was inspired to create a modest modification to vehicles that would reduce the need for conventional fuel,
There no doubt that in the race for green power the human body has been overlooked in favor of alternative fuel sources such as biofuels, hydrogen etc.
#Toyota opens fuel cell patents to drive hydrogen society Toyota is serious about hydrogen fuel cell technology.
USA Inc."The first generation hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, launched between 2015 and 2020, will be critical,
and prices for the fuel have jumped in recent years, igniting demand for alternatives. The state s tax credit for solar energy made it additionally appealing (Climatewire, May 6).
and with a full tank of fuel it never gets tired. You do#not#want this thing chasing after you.
##Solar is now the second largest source of new electricity capacity in the U s.,behind natural gas,
#which said that U s. emissions of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels was lower last year than at any time since 1994.
We are still massively dependent on fossil fuels even though they are limited a resource. But, a team of scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago have figured out#a way to make synthetic gas inexpensively,
perhaps in combination, firing the maker revolution with even more fuel. Via Venture Beat Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorat u
while natural gas will supply another 20 percent. The remaining 20 percent will be supplied by renewable sources, including hydropower,
Due to a combination of new found purchasing power, declining solar system costs, increasing kerosene costs, and advances in solar services business models,
solar is actually cheaper than the alternative (kerosene plus phone-charging) when financed. That s because close to 1 billion people have risen above the poverty line over the past twenty years,
and polluting energy sources like kerosene (or even worse, candles). Selling cheap basic services like solar electricity into this market through#micropayment schemes#is
propane and butane gasses are released in the process, the machine is equipped with an off-gas filter that disintegrates these gases into water and carbon.
Typically made from petroleum, it is estimated that 7%of the#world s annual oil production#is used to produce
The result is a crude gas that can fuel things like generators or stoves and,
it could solve the fuel crisis in the real world. Thorium is being hailed as the key in the bid to find safer
Professor Roger Barlow from the University of Huddersfield is part of a team researching thorium power generation.
but when exposed to neutrons it will react to produce a particular isotope of uranium (U-233) that becomes the nuclear fuel.
If you re trying to move to a low-carbon fuel economy, you need a whole basket of measures,
Along with cutting out fossil fuel-generated energy to a large extent, the transition to renewables includes completely phasing out nuclear power.
The modest uptick in coal fired generation was substituting for pricier natural gas, not representative of a return to coal as it often mischaracterized.
Energiewende rooted in the acknowledgement that a fossil fuel-based energy system is not sustainable is remarkable for its scope and its widespread support,
requiring a less-active control system, saving millions in fuel costs. However, this approach still has problems.
which allows efficiently reprogramming unicellular life to make fuels, byproducts accessible from organic chemistry and smart devices.
while fossil fuel-or battery-powered unmanned aircraft are expensive to run and possess a shorter range.
They know how to turn seawater into fuel. The development of a liquid hydrocarbon fuel could one day relieve the military dependence on oil-based fuels
and is being heralded as a ame changerbecause it could allow military ships to develop their own fuel and stay operational 100 percent of the time,
rather than having to refuel at sea. The new fuel is expected initially to cost around $3 to $6 per gallon
according to the U s. Naval Research Laboratory, which has flown already a model aircraft on it. The Navy 289 vessels all rely on oil-based fuel,
with the exception of some aircraft carriers and 72 submarines that rely on nuclear propulsion. Moving away from that reliance would free the military from fuel shortages
and fluctuations in price. t a huge milestone for us, said Vice Adm. Philip Cullom. e are in very challenging times where we really do have to think in pretty innovative ways to look at how we create energy,
We need to challenge the results of the assumptions that are the result of the last six decades of constant access to cheap unlimited amounts of fuel.
The gasses are turned then into a fuel by a gas-to-liquids process with the help of catalytic converters. or us in the military, in the Navy,
said Cullom. e don necessarily go to a gas station to get our fuel. Our gas station comes to us in terms of an oiler, a replenishment ship.
Developing a game-changing technology like this, seawater to fuel really is something that reinvents a lot of the way we can do business
The next challenge for the Navy is to produce the fuel in industrial quantities. It will also partner with universities to maximize the amount of CO2
adding that the fuel oesn look or smell very different. ee demonstrated the feasibility, we want to improve the process efficiency,
A rocket s skin, for example, needs to contain a column of super-pressurized fuel and at the same time weigh as little as possible.
U k. emissions from fossil fuel burning in 2010 were 494 million tons of CO2 said Pieter Tans of the U s. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory
After long focusing on fuel economy and energy production environmentalists and scientists are now promoting a diet of more plants and less meat to slow climate change but why?
Thousands of tons of vanadium are brought to the surface through worldwide petroleum operations alone every year.
By working with Imergy, fuel and mining companies can reduce their potential scope of liability and operating costs. his is a win all the way around.
Halliburton's petroleum systems modeling technology defines the distribution of hydrocarbons in the unconventional reservoir to aid well placement
and biofuels the creators say. Researchers took tiny snippets of man-made DNA and joined them together to create a synthetic version of a chromosome the structure that contains DNA inside cells from brewer's yeast.
and biofuels and the ability to create custom-made yeast would provide useful too for the biotech industry.
Synthetic yeast could also churn out more efficient biofuels such as alcohol butanol or biodiesel which could enable humanity to transition off of a petroleum economy Boeke said.
In addition to practical applications synthetic yeast could be used to study how different genes function and interact to understand how networks of genes influence behavior the researchers added.
and biofilms with enzymes that catalyze the breakdown of cellulose could be used for the conversion of agricultural waste into biofuels.
The latest initiative in England that's transforming landfill-bound organic waste and excreta into bio-based fuel?
The first of its kind in the United kingdom Bio-Bus is a 40-seat transit vehicle that runs entirely on fuel generated through anaerobic digestion.
That is the conversion of waste n this case both locally sourced food waste and human sewage nto a methane-rich biogas.
its thorium research programme focuses on turning the material into fissile uranium-233 for use as reactor fuel.
Recovering plutonium and uranium-233 from spent fuel is key to India's thorium programme,
Last month, Thorium power in Mclean, Virginia, with a market capitalization of about $40 million established a joint venture with Punj Lloyd, an engineering company in Gurgaon.
but sulphate and soot particles from fossil fuel burning are the main culprits, the team found."
Another complication is that soot from burning biofuels, widely used for cooking and heating in India and Africa,
and previously in North america if coal is replaced by oil and natural gas as an energy source, and if particulate filters in cars and factories become more common o
#Liquid storage could make hydrogen a feasible fuel A process for extracting hydrogen from a liquid fuel could remove one of the biggest hurdles to a'hydrogen economy,
a liquid fuel that#unlike hydrogen itself#can be transported easily and stored. Matthias Beller, a chemical engineer at the University of Rostock in Germany,
Many chemists have spent decades studying how best to trap hydrogen for use as a fuel.
It is straightforward to turn hydrogen into the liquid fuel: a well-known reaction combines hydrogen and carbon monoxide gases using commercial catalysts.
because it is about the same temperature as the waste heat from an operating hydrogen fuel cell.
hydrogen fuel cells are twice as efficient as fuel cells that directly run on methanol, for instance. Not everyone agrees with Beller and Tsang.
Olah argues that a future economy could use methanol directly as a liquid fuel, so the world should work on ways to produce it#perhaps by capturing carbon dioxide.
and its inventors hope that it could be used to measure the performance of biofuel-producing organisms,
Other researchers are trying to repurpose the biochemistry of green algae to make biofuels, and Saraf thinks that his device could monitor how efficiently the new strains photosynthesize.
#Obama to announce $2 billion plan to get US cars off gasoline An article by Scientific American.
enhance battery technology and expand the use of biofuels, among other clean energy efforts. The ultimate goal:
Weaning the nation off fossil fuels entirely for its transportation needs may not be practical or realistic.
Chemosynthesis also fuels life at other deep-sea locations such as hydrothermal vents but those are restricted to the edges of continental plates.
It also has to be cheap enough to compete with traditional fossil fuels. That been a high hurdle for devices called solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCS) that convert fuelsuch as methane and hydrogenirectly to electricity without burning them.
There, they react with molecules in the fuel generating water, carbon dioxide, and electricity. The electricity is fed through a circuit where it powers our devices,
The devices make electricity at an efficiency that can match a large natural gas-based power plant. But whereas a power plant is huge and costs hundreds of millions of dollars to build,
#Water-splitter could make hydrogen fuel on Mars Making fuel on site for a return trip to Mars may be a step closer.
and future Earthlings enabling them to use renewable energy sources for making hydrogen fuel. Hydrogen fuel cells can power vehicles ranging from cars to submarines and rockets.
They can also heat buildings and double as portable power-packs for computers or other kit used in the field.
Cronin and his colleagues see this as a major obstacle to a future in which hydrogen fuel replaces oil.
or for making fuel on Mars to power a rocket back to Earth. It is unclear
which NIF engineers originally designed to implode fuel capsules for research into nuclear fusion power. The team fixed a diamond inside a hole cut in a small gold cylinder
Much of the weight of today's rockets comes from their own propellant so having a source of fuel already in space would pave the way for much more ambitious human missions.
and beyond we don't want to have to bring fuel with us says Anthony Colaprete of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field California.
and teams of human miners to the moon to supply water for fuel depots that it would place in Earth orbit t
The next drill scoop will have to wait until the planet comes back into Range in the meantime the science team has plenty of data to fuel new discoveries and daydreams.
These studies include technology policy reports focused on nuclear power coal natural gas and the smart electric grid.
undercutting even today low-cost natural gas but in areas like New england and the Southeast, taller towers are needed to reach the strong winds that make wind energy economically feasible. nce youe at the heights wee looking at,
The technology could also drive down operating costs for base stations in the developing world where these stations rely on expensive diesel fuel for power
#New approach to boosting biofuel production Yeast are used commonly to transform corn and other plant materials into biofuels such as ethanol.
However large concentrations of ethanol can be toxic to yeast which has limited the production capacity of many yeast strains used in industry.
Toxicity is probably the single most important problem in cost-effective biofuels production says Gregory Stephanopoulos the Willard Henry Dow Professor of Chemical engineering at MIT.
Now Stephanopoulos and colleagues at MIT and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research have identified a new way to boost yeast tolerance to ethanol by simply altering the composition of the medium in
They report the findings which they believe could have a significant impact on industrial biofuel production in today s issue of the journal Science.
Ethanol and other alcohols can disrupt yeast cell membranes eventually killing the cells. The MIT team found that adding potassium and hydroxide ions to the medium in
By making these changes the researchers were able to boost yeast s ethanol production by about 80 percent.
This work goes a long way to squeezing the last drop of ethanol from sugar adds Gerald Fink an MIT professor of biology member of the Whitehead Institute and the paper s other senior author.
or group of genes that could be manipulated to make yeast more tolerant to ethanol but this approach did not yield much success
and increasing the ph with potassium hydroxide the researchers were able to dramatically boost ethanol production.
They also found that these changes did not affect the biochemical pathway used by the yeast to produce ethanol:
Yeast continued to produce ethanol at the same per-cell rate as long as they remained viable. Instead the changes influenced their electrochemical membrane gradients differences in ion concentrations inside and outside the membrane
Ethanol increases the porosity of the cell membrane making it very difficult for cells to maintain their electrochemical gradients.
the longer they survive the more ethanol they make. By reinforcing these gradients we re energizing yeast to allow them to withstand harsher conditions
What s also exciting to us is that this could apply beyond ethanol to more advanced biofuel alcohols that upset cell membranes in the same way Lam says.
Industrial relevancebefore yeast begin their work producing ethanol the starting material usually corn must be broken down into glucose.
While many studies have examined ways to boost ethanol tolerance at low glucose levels the MIT team used concentrations of about 300 grams per liter similar to
what would be found in an industrial biofuel fermenter. If you really want to be relevant you ve got to go to these levels.
Otherwise what you learn at low ethanol levels is not likely to translate to industrial production Stephanopoulos says.
Lonnie Ingram director of the Florida Center for Renewable Chemicals and Fuels at the University of Florida describes the MIT team s discovery as remarkable and unexpected.
In more recent experiments the MIT researchers have used this method to bump ethanol productivity even higher than reported in the Science paper.
They are also working on using this approach to boost the ethanol yield from various industrial feedstocks that because of starting compounds inherently toxic to yeast now have low yields.
What s more such robots run on gasoline and are powered by a gasoline engine in order to generate high forces.
In the desert environment dust is present on a daily basis says co-author Numan Abu-Dheir of the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) in Saudi arabia.
where the ability to adjust the texture of panels to minimize drag at different speeds could increase fuel efficiency,
Now researchers at MIT and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) in Saudi arabia have devised a robotic system that can detect leaks at a rapid pace and with high accuracy by sensing a large pressure
or in petroleum pipelines about setting up field tests under real-world conditions. Chatzigeorgiou presented the concept this month at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Hong kong,
Methane, the primary constituent of natural gas, is a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
and to convert carbon dioxide to fuels for applications On earth and in space. Today industrial infrastructure manages basic resources linearly
along with carbon dioxide to produce biogas at a rate of up to 100 cubic feet per minute.
improves biogas quality, and enables a higher degree of automation. The biogas enters a connected cogeneration system for power conversion.
Depending on several site factors, this produces anywhere from 30 to 400 kilowatts of electricity. Treated wastewater exits the reactor with 80 to 90 percent of pollutants removed,
In 2012, NASA began funding a Cambrian project, called Exogen, that uses electromethanogenesis to more efficiently extract oxygen or fuel from CO2 for long-duration space flights.
and the introduction of alkyl groups caused by pollutants such as fuel exhaust and tobacco smoke. To achieve this, the researchers created five different circular pieces of DNA, four
Inventors just care a lot about their inventions and that passion and commitment fuels commercial progress.
Unlike fuels that are burned this system uses material that can be reused continually. It produces no emissions
which could be useful for converting agricultural waste to biofuels. Other potential applications include diagnostic devices and scaffolds for tissue engineering.
and fuel, release the oxygen that we breathe, and add beauty to our surroundings. Now, a team of MIT researchers wants to make plants even more useful by augmenting them with nanomaterials that could enhance their energy production
What is the impact of nanoparticles on the production of chemical fuels like glucose? Giraldo says.
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