This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.

January 09, 2013

Energy Department Awards $10 Million to Develop Advanced Biofuels

The Energy Department is supporting five projects that will develop new technologies to convert biomass into advanced biofuels and bioproducts. Credit: Energy Department

The Energy Department on January 3 announced its award of more than $10 million in funding to five projects in California, Maryland, Texas, and Washington that will develop innovative technologies to convert biomass into advanced biofuels and bioproducts. These projects use synthetic biological and chemical techniques to convert biomass into processable sugars that can be transformed into bioproducts and drop-in biofuels for cars, trucks, and planes.

Two of these projects will develop cost-effective ways to produce intermediates from the deconstruction of lignocellulose, a structural material that comprises much of the mass of plants. Biofuel intermediates are biomass-based products that can be treated as commodities and passed from a producer to a refiner through the supply chain, before being processed into biofuel. Three projects will propose new conversion techniques to transform biomass intermediates into advanced biofuels and bioproducts. See the Energy Department Progress Alert.