List of biofuel companies and researchers

First generation biofuels

First generation biofuels use the edible parts of food plants as their carbon source feedstock.

ADM Ölmühle Hamburg, part of Archer Daniels Midland

Archer Daniels Midland

The Archer Daniels Midland Company is a conglomerate headquartered in Decatur, Illinois. ADM operates more than 270 plants worldwide, where cereal grains and oilseeds are processed into products used in food, beverage, nutraceutical, industrial and animal feed markets worldwide.ADM was named the...

. Germany.

Products: biodiesel.

Diester Industrie, part of Bunge Limited

Bunge Limited

Bunge Limited is a Bermudan food conglomerate with its headquarters in White Plains, New York. As well as being a leading global soybean exporter it is also involved in food processing, grain trading, and fertilizer...

. France.

Products: biodiesel.

Jilin Fuel Ethanol, part of China National Petroleum Corporation

China National Petroleum Corporation

China National Petroleum Corporation is a state-owned fuel-producing corporation and the largest integrated oil and gas company in the People's Republic of China...

. China.

LS9, Inc
LS9, Inc
LS9, Inc is a biotechnology startup located in South San Francisco, specializing in the development of renewable biofuels using synthetic biology. Describing itself as being in the "prerevenue" stage,, it has received some $20m in funding from Khosla Ventures and Flagship Ventures.LS9's CEO is Ed...

. South San Francisco, California

South San Francisco, California

South San Francisco is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area...

, USA; Okeechobee, Florida

Okeechobee, Florida

Okeechobee is a city in Okeechobee County, Florida, United States. The population was 5,376 at the 2000 census. As of 2004, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 5,784. It is the county seat of Okeechobee County. The Speckled Perch Festival is held annually in honor of the most...

, USA.

Technology: fermenters with genetically modified bacteria.

Feedstocks: sugar cane syrup; planned: celluslose agricultural residues.

Products: fuel oils, chemicals.

Second generation biofuels

Second generation biofuels - also known as advanced biofuels - can be manufactured from various types of biomass.Biomass is a wide-ranging term meaning any source of organic carbon that is renewed rapidly as part of the carbon cycle...

use non-food substances as a feedstock carbon source. Example feedstocks include non-food plants, the inedible parts of food plants, and waste cooking fat.

Blue Marble Energy
Blue Marble Energy
Blue Marble Energy, founded in 2005, is a Seattle-based company which utilizes hybridized bacterial consortia to produce specialty biochemicals and renewable biogas. Their company mission is to displace oil with fully renewable, carbon neutral alternatives...

. Seattle, Washington, USA.

Technology: consortia of different non-GM bacteria.

Feedstocks: "nearly any organic biomass".

Products: methane, nitrogen compounds, hydrogen.

Chemrec
Chemrec
Chemrec is a Stockholm, Sweden corporation that develops technology for entrained flow gasification of black liquor and certain types brown liquor for production of biofuels from the resulting syngas....

. Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

, Sweden.

Technology: black liquor

Black liquor

Black liquor is the spent cooking liquor from the kraft process when digesting pulpwood into paper pulp removing lignin, hemicelluloses and other extractives from the wood to free the cellulose fibers....

gasification

Gasification

Gasification is a process that converts organic or fossil based carbonaceous materials into carbon monoxide, hydrogen, carbon dioxide and methane. This is achieved by reacting the material at high temperatures , without combustion, with a controlled amount of oxygen and/or steam...

Feedstocks: black liquor

Black liquor

from sulfate process or sulfite process

Sulfite process

The sulfite process produces wood pulp which is almost pure cellulose fibers by using various salts of sulfurous acid to extract the lignin from wood chips in large pressure vessels called digesters. The salts used in the pulping process are either sulfites , or bisulfites , depending on the pH...

pulp mills

Pulp mill

A pulp mill is a manufacturing facility that converts wood chips or other plant fibre source into a thick fibre board which can be shipped to a paper mill for further processing. Pulp can be manufactured using mechanical, semi-chemical or fully chemical methods...

Products: Biomethanol, BioDME.

DuPont Danisco
DuPont Danisco
DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol LLC is a 50/50 joint venture between DuPont and Genencor, a subsidiary of Danisco. The company is accelerating development and deployment of cellulosic ethanol, which is ethanol made from non-food biomass...

. Vonore, Tennessee

Vonore, Tennessee

Vonore is a town in Blount and Monroe counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee. The population was 1,162 as of the 2000 census.-Geography:Vonore is located at ....

, USA.

Feedstocks: non-edible parts of plants.

Products: ethanol.

Fujian Zhongde, part of China Clean Energy

China Clean Energy

China Clean Energy, Inc. , through its wholly owned subsidiary Fujian Zhongde Technology Co., Ltd. , is a biodiesel and specialty chemical producer operating in The People's Republic of China and selling products both domestically there and worldwide.-Biodiesel:The company uses waste vegetable...

. Fuqing

Fuqing

Fuqing is a county-level city of Fuzhou in Fujian, China.It is located in the eastern part of the province, borders the East China Sea, just southeast of Fuzhou and 45 kilometers from Changle International Airport of Fuzhou. Fuqing city has geographical advantage, for its location between...

, Fujian

Fujian

' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...

, China.

Feedstocks: waste vegetable oils.

Products: biodiesel, chemicals.

Gushan Environmental Energy. Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

, China; Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

, China; Mianyang

Mianyang

Mianyang is the second largest prefecture-level city of Sichuan province in Southwest China. Its administrative area includes the city proper of Mianyang, with 985,586 inhabitants in the built up area , the county-level city of Jiangyou, and six counties, covering an area of over and a population...

, Sichuan

Sichuan

' , known formerly in the West by its postal map spellings of Szechwan or Szechuan is a province in Southwest China with its capital in Chengdu...

, China; Handan

Handan

Handan is a prefecture-level city located in the southwestern part of Hebei Province of China.- History :Handan was the capital of the State of Zhao during the Warring States period , after the capital moved from Zhongmu. The city was conquered by the State of Qin after the virtual annexation of...

, Hebei

Hebei

' is a province of the People's Republic of China in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is "" , named after Ji Province, a Han Dynasty province that included what is now southern Hebei...

, China; Fuzhou

Fuzhou

Fuzhou is the capital and one of the largest cities in Fujian Province, People's Republic of China. Along with the many counties of Ningde, those of Fuzhou are considered to constitute the Mindong linguistic and cultural area....

, Fujian

Fujian

, China.

Feedstocks: vegetable oil, animal fat, recycled cooking oil.

Products: biodiesel, glycerol, plant asphalt, erucic acid, erucic amide.

Third generation biofuels

Algae fuel

Algae fuel might be an alternative to fossil fuel and uses algae as its source of natural deposits. Several companies and government agencies are funding efforts to reduce capital and operating costs and make algae fuel production commercially viable...

use algae to convert carbon dioxide into biomass.

Algenol
Algenol
Algenol, headquartered in Bonita Springs, Florida, is a company developing a process to produce ethanol directly from algae. Rather than grow algae and then harvest them, the ethanol is removed without killing the algae...

. Bonita Springs, Florida

Bonita Springs, Florida

Bonita Springs is a city in Lee County, Florida, United States. The population was 43,914 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Cape Coral–Fort Myers Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city is located on the southwest coast of the state....

, USA; Baltimore

Baltimore

Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...

, USA; Lee County, Florida

Lee County, Florida

Lee County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. Located in southwest Florida, the principal cities in the county are Fort Myers and Cape Coral...

, USA.

Technology: algae grown in photobioreactors.

Feedstocks: seawater, sunlight, carbon dioxide.

Products: ethanol, freshwater.

Gevo, Douglas County, Colorado, USA.
Global Green Aglae, part of Global Green Solutions. El Paso, Texas

El Paso, Texas

El Paso, is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in far West Texas. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 649,121. It is the sixth largest city in Texas and the 19th largest city in the United States...

, USA.

GreenFuel Technologies Corporation
GreenFuel Technologies Corporation
GreenFuel Technologies Corporation was a startup that developed a process of growing algae using emissions from fossil fuel, mainly to produce biofuel from algae.It was based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Greenfuel shut down operations on May 13, 2009...

. Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

, USA. Ceased operations 2009.

PetroSun
PetroSun
PetroSun is an energy company specializing in oil and gas exploration and algae fuel. It headquarters are in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA....

. Scottsdale, Arizona

Scottsdale, Arizona

Scottsdale is a city in the eastern part of Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, adjacent to Phoenix. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2010 the population of the city was 217,385...

, USA.

Technology: pyrolysis of organics, algae.

Products: algal oil, hydrogen, charcoal fertiliser.

Sapphire Energy
Sapphire Energy
Sapphire Energy is a San Diego-based energy company that produces oil made from algae.- History :On May 29, 2008 the Los Angeles Times reported that Sapphire expects to introduce its first fuels based on green crude. Sapphire Energy announced a second round investment, including the Microsoft...

. San Diego, California, USA.

Technology: algae.

Feedstocks: sunlight, carbon dioxide.

Products: green crude.

Solazyme
Solazyme
Solazyme Inc. is a publicly held United States alternative energy company specializing in the production of algal fuel for use in ground and air transportation. Solazyme uses proprietary technology to transform a range of low-cost plant-based sugars into high-value oils...

. South San Francisco, California

South San Francisco, California

South San Francisco is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area...

, USA.

Technology: algae.

Feedstocks: plant matter.

Products: oils, including aviation fuel.

Fourth generation biofuels

While there is no one established definition of "fourth-generation biofuels," some have referred to it as the biofuels created from processes other than first, second, or third generation methods.

Some fourth generation technology pathways include: pyrolysis

Pyrolysis

Pyrolysis is a thermochemical decomposition of organic material at elevated temperatures without the participation of oxygen. It involves the simultaneous change of chemical composition and physical phase, and is irreversible...

, gasification

Gasification

, upgrading, solar-to-fuel

Solar chemical

Solar chemical refers to a number of possible processes that harness solar energy by absorbing sunlight in a chemical reaction in a way similar to photosynthesis in plants but without using living organisms. It is also called artificial photosynthesis...

, and genetic manipulation of organisms to secrete hydrocarbons.

GreenFuel Technologies Corporation
GreenFuel Technologies Corporation
GreenFuel Technologies Corporation was a startup that developed a process of growing algae using emissions from fossil fuel, mainly to produce biofuel from algae.It was based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Greenfuel shut down operations on May 13, 2009...

Technology: developed a patented bioreactor system that uses nontoxic photosynthetic algae to take in smokestacks flue gases and produce biofuels such as biodiesel, biogas and a dry fuel comparable to coal.

Hydrocarbon plant

Hydrocarbon plants or petroleum plants are plants which produce terpenoids as secondary metabolites in sufficient quantities to make it economically feasible to convert their dry mass to gasoline-like fuels. Nobel laureate Melvin Calvin has studied the terpene biosynthetic pathways of a number of...

s or petroleum plants are plants which produce terpenoid

Terpenoid

The terpenoids , sometimes called isoprenoids, are a large and diverse class of naturally occurring organic chemicals similar to terpenes, derived from five-carbon isoprene units assembled and modified in thousands of ways. Most are multicyclic structures that differ from one another not only in...

s as secondary metabolite

Secondary metabolite

Secondary metabolites are organic compounds that are not directly involved in the normal growth, development, or reproduction of an organism. Unlike primary metabolites, absence of secondary metabolities does not result in immediate death, but rather in long-term impairment of the organism's...

s that can be converted to gasoline

Gasoline

Gasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain...

-like fuels. Latex

Latex

Latex is the stable dispersion of polymer microparticles in an aqueous medium. Latexes may be natural or synthetic.Latex as found in nature is a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants . It is a complex emulsion consisting of proteins, alkaloids, starches, sugars, oils, tannins, resins,...

producing members of the Euphorbiaceae

Euphorbiaceae

Euphorbiaceae, the Spurge family are a large family of flowering plants with 300 genera and around 7,500 species. Most are herbs, but some, especially in the tropics, are also shrubs or trees. Some are succulent and resemble cacti....

such as Euphorbia lathyris
Euphorbia lathyris
Euphorbia lathyris is a species of spurge native to southern Europe , northwest Africa, and eastward through southwest Asia to western China....

and E. tirucalli
Euphorbia tirucalli
Euphorbia tirucalli is a shrub that grows in semi-arid tropical climates.It has a wide distribution in Africa, being prominently present in northeastern, central...

and members of Apocynaceae

Apocynaceae

The Apocynaceae or dogbane family is a family of flowering plants that includes trees, shrubs, herbs, and lianas.Many species are tall trees found in tropical rainforests, and most are from the tropics and subtropics, but some grow in tropical dry, xeric environments. There are also perennial herbs...

have been studied for their potential energy uses.

First generation biofuels

Second generation biofuels

Third generation biofuels

Fourth generation biofuels

See also