In order to improve the sustainability credentials of biofuels, experts have been trying to figure out ways to produce them from non-food sources, such as cellulose – the material that makes up the ...

There's an old saying in the biofuels industry: 'You can make anything from lignin except money.' But now, a new study may pave the way to challenging that adage. The study demonstrates a concept that ...

A new low-temperature multi-phase process for upgrading lignin bio-oil to hydrocarbons could help expand use of the lignin, which is now largely a waste product left over from the productions of ...

Lignin—a tough, mixed polymer found in plant cell walls—is nature’s most abundant stockpile of aromatic functional groups. Because of this, lignin’s rich natural complexity could be a well of new ...

Researchers at three institutions—the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Washington State University—report ...

The demand for vanillin vastly outstrips the natural resources of this flavoring agent. A chemical process is thus used to produce the required large quantities of vanillin from petroleum, which is ...

After Michael Lake got his Ph.D. in chemical engineering and joined the paper company Westvaco, he soon became convinced that lignin—needed by trees but unwanted by the paper industry—was the material ...