Foreword
In many minds the term ‘bioeconomy’
is most readily associated with plants: they are, in an overwhelming majority
of circumstances, the feedstocks from which bioeconomy processes are derived.
However, many of the applications derived for biobased products and processes
are inspired by other living things. The chief players here tend to be
microbes, whose metabolic processes often serve as the inspiration for processes
to add significant value to biomass, while delivering on real needs in the
chemical and materials sectors. This month’s feature story concerns precisely
such a development (of particular interest to this author because it concerns
beetles – his dissertation model organism) wherein researchers have potentially
discovered a new approach to lignocellulosic biorefining by mimicking conditions
found in the gut flora of a common American beetle. This beetle is able to
efficiently digest woody biomass and derive all of its required nutrition from
it, despite the complex chemical processes required to break down lignin. The
beetle achieves this by.........
Other News this Month Includes:
Policy
- UK government consults on waste management
- Under European Commission ILUC directive,
only palm is high risk
- UK to consult on post-Brexit carbon trading​
Markets
- Despite interest, industrial algae remain
unexploited
- Cannabis waste to be used for textiles
Research & Development
- Beetle gut discovered to be natural
biorefinery
- Discarded cocoa pods as bioenergy feedstocks​
Wood & Crop
- Drax pellet production up 64%
- Metsä renews sustainability goals
- Trunks from palm plantations used as
chemical feedstock
- Natureworks to have 100% certified
sustainable feedstock by 2020
- Investment for Canadian biomass research
cluster
- Geminor acquires Norwegian wood chips
producer​
Other Feedstocks
- Aimplas lab cleared to test for OK Compost
certification
- Shell joins Waste-to-Chemicals consortium
Events
Feedstock Prices