LanzaTech churns steel factory emissions into fuel
Biofuel companies are gaining momentum — with the market fixing its eyes on the conversion of corn and other agricultural stocks into ethanol. But another area of the business seems to be heating up: turning trash into transportation fuel. Last week, Fulcrum BioEnergy demonstrated its technology squeezing ethanol from municipal garbage. Today, New Zealand-based LanzaTech says it can do the same from waste gases released by steel factories.
Founded in 2005, the company has proved that… Continue Reading
LanzaTech taps carbon monoxide emissions to produce ethanol
At first glance, LanzaTech’s plan to use bacterial fermentation to convert waste gas emissions into bio-ethanol doesn’t seem all that different from the waste-to-biofuel processes developed by other startups, like SequesCO and GreenFuel Technologies.
Trap a large quantity of emissions from a power plant, pipe them to algae or bacteria contained in either a pond or bioreactor, add a few nutrients and voila! You now have a ready supply of biofuels. Unlike its competitors, however, Auckland,… Continue Reading
SequesCO combines CO2 sequestration with biofuel production
Sequesco joins a growing list of startups that are using synthetic biology to custom-produce advanced biofuels. But unlike competitors LS9 and Amyris, which are engineering microbes to make hydrocarbon-based fuels from various plant biomass sources, it uses waste carbon dioxide as its primary feedstock.
The idea is to pump CO2 from large emitters like coal plants or biorefineries into the firm’s bioreactors, in which large colonies of bacteria would use the greenhouse gas and a nutrient… Continue Reading