As of the end of October, the blog's unique readers more than tripled to 6,782 compared to 2,064 in Oct. 2008! The number of hits the blog had this year jumped from 2,769 total visits in January to 7,734 in October, and this month also had a record-high page views of around 12,629 compared to 4,557 in January.

Hmmm, maybe I should start doing advertising now?? = )

According to ICIS online editor Simon Robinson (who handles all ICIS blogs), a lot of the green blog's hits seem to be on archives. One search standing out is about fly ash. I'm not sure why...

In my tweeter feed data, there are also lots of interests on Walmart, Ford's green plastic projects, and green chemistry investments.

Here are the blog's stats for the year. Let me know what else we can do to make the blog more interactive, informative and exciting for the followers!

First time at the UNICA (Brazilian sugarcane association) press tour, and it's a whirlwind I tell ya! In over 12 years of reporting, I've never had such a packed schedule. From the moment we landed, we went straight to a press conference.

Check out some video clips from the Pedra Agroindustrial sugarcane processing and ethanol facility in Ribeirao Preto, Sao Paulo state in Brazil.

The plant tour - hot, humid and noisy. But you really get to see the nuts and bolts of the operation, and the ethanol end product. Bottoms up!

Plus we went into the field and saw how the sugarcane is harvested - 12-foot tall plants sucked into a tractor-like machine and spit out into the truck.

My first self-made videos here - folks be kind!

UNICA sees Brazilian ethanol production almost doubling by the 2015/2016 harvest year to 46.9m tonnes/year, mainly to fuel the domestic market. But it also aims for higher exports driven by climate change legislation in the EU.

Plus, bioplastics from sugarcane is on the horizon. Pedra Agroindustrial plans to build the

world's first sugarcane-based bioplastics facility with a capacity of between 35,000-40,000 tonnes/year by 2012.

See the stories on ICIS news (subscription required):

EU renewable energy law to drive demand for ethanol contracts

Brazil Pedra to build sugarcane bioplastics plant by 2012

More photos and updates to come.

Happy Thanksgiving to you - all of Doris de Guzman's ICIS Green Chemicals Blog readers!

Using SiGNa's proprietary sodium silicide (NaSi) powder, the H300 generates hydrogen on demand in swappable cartridges via two hydrogen canisters that generate more than 800 liters of hydrogen at a combined flow-rate of up to 4 slpm (continuous) and 10 slpm (peak).

SiGNA said the system supports a broad range of portable fuel cell applications including back-up power systems, emergency responder work-stations, military battery recharging, and electric bicycles. The company has demonstrated hydrogen generation for applications ranging from 1 to 500 Watts.

"The H300 Hydrogen Generator System allows us to easily showcase our effective materials to portable fuel cell system developers," says Michael Lefenfeld, President and CEO, SiGNa Chemistry.

"Hydrogen storage continues to be the single most important piece of technology limiting portable fuel cell commercialization, "says Ken Pearson, COO, Trulite, Inc. "High energy density, low cost, and start-stop capability are all critical market requirement areas that SiGNa's NaSi powder technology has the potential to meet."

According to the company, it has been involved in bio-kerosene research since 2007. Honeywell's UOP, whose process technology was used to produced the green fuel, said that one engine of the Boeing 747 used by KLM was powered by a fuel mixture consisting of a 50/50 mix of the green jet fuel and traditional petroleum-derived jet fuel.

Camelina oil was used for the production of the green fuel, said UOP.

"Camelina is an inedible plant that grows in conditions where other food crops cannot, is considered a sustainable, second-generation resource because its cultivation and harvesting do not tax valuable food, land or water resources."

The company hopes to launch sample product applications of its low-cost glucaric acid next year, first as corrosion inhibitors as well as an alternative to phosphate in detergent cleaning products.

So what's the story behind Rivertop Renewables?

According to Don Kiely, who is a retired professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Montana, he has been focusing on finding practical applications for carbohydrates for more than a decade. Low-cost production of glucaric acid is one of his patented technologies and he hopes to have it commercialized before he fully retires in two years.

Hence, Rivertop Renewables was formed in January 2008 with their first round of funding mostly from the founders themselves, friends/families, and a couple of angel investors.

The company said they just recently introduced themselves to the venture community and hope to close their second round of financing soon.

"We are getting good signs from advisors within the industry. We are a well-managed company, our technology is now well-positioned, and so we are hopeful to get a good traction early on even though there is of course a little trepidation on our part given the capital market situation out there," said Jason Kiely.

"2010 will be a big year for us as we are also targeting to get large amount of samples out for that year," said Don Kiely. "We've been in contact with 20 plus prospective customers and we believe that we can make our 2010 targets because of the effectiveness of the scalability of our glucaric acid process."

According to the company, their glucaric acid process is a very simple chemical process, applicable to a variety of carbohydrates, does not rely on any particular microorganism to make the transformation, and if everything will go well, there will be no waste products involved because of a closed loop processing design.

Most of the glucose today comes from cornstarch but Don Kiely noted that their process can use biomass-based carbohydrate feedstock if they're available.

The company plans to first introduced glucaric acid-based corrosion inhibitors in road salt deicers, and in water heating and cooling systems as early as late 2010. According to Jason Kiely, there is still one more testing to be done with the application of glucaric-aid as a detergent builder.

Also under development are applications of glucaric acid as concrete admixture; as biodegradable polymer gel that can compete with polyacrylates in diapers; and as agricultural biodegradable hydrogel for cost-effective, time-release fertilizer.

[Photo of Tyler Smith, R&D director for Rivertop Renewables, working with a rotary evaporator]

Owens Corning is increasing the recycled content in its fiberglass insulation and masonry products. The company's residential and commercial insulation products in North America now are made of at least half recycled glass content (minimum 50%).

Gas and algae collaboration
Linde Group and Algenol Biofuels formed a joint development project in order to identify the optimum management of carbon dioxide and oxygen for Algenol's algae and photobioreactor technology.

More transparent SC Johnson
SC Johnson says its ingredient disclosure program is now ahead of schedule and its website now includes 129 SC Johnson air care products and 76 home cleaning products, as well as explanations of the 169 ingredients that comprise these products.

The facility is a joint venture of DONG Energy and Inbicon. Danisco's enzyme business, Genencor, supplies the Accellerase© enzymes, which are used to convert the feedstock straw to ethanol (for E85 fuel use).

The facility is expected to use 30,000 tonnes/year of straw to produce 5.4 million litres of bioethanol (1.5 million gallons); 13,000 tonnes of lignin pellets; and 11,100 tonnes C5 molasses. DONG Energy said the bio pellets can be used as fuel at CPH plants, and the C5 molasses can be used for animal feed and other purposes.

"Our bioethanol plant will demonstrate that we are capable of producing so-called second generation bioethanol on the basis of waste products. If our technology is well received by the global markets, new opportunities of export will evolve", said Anders Eldrup, CEO of DONG Energy.

Here's an unedited clip of the plant's inauguration: (see how much straw they need?!?!)

This one is a $24m grant from the US Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of Agriculture (USDA) being given to companies that are develop technologies to produce biofuels, bioenergy and high-value biobased products using biomass as feedstock.

The awardees must contribute a minimum of 20% of matching funds for R&D projects and 50% of matching funds for demonstration projects. For biobased products and biofuels development, companies selected include GE Global Research, Gevo, Itaconix, Yenkin-Majestic Paint Corporation, and Velocys.

Gevo, which was awarded $1.8m, said that this grant will help fund ongoing development of its yeast strain to produce biobutanol from cellulosic biomass. The company started up its biobutanol demonstration plant - said to be the first in the world, last September. The facility was designed from retrofitting an existing demonstration scale ethanol plant to produce biobutanol.

Itaconix, meanwhile, aims to produce green polymers from itaconic acid fermented with sugars extracted from hardwood biomass. Their product polyitaconic acid is a water soluble polymer, said to have a 2 million ton/year market potential as a replacement for petrochemical dispersants, detergents, and super-absorbents.

Other awardees include Exelus, which aims to develop a Biomass-to-Gasoline (BTG) technology; and universities such as University of Tennessee (working on switchgrass), Oklahoma State University, University of Minnesota, and Purdue University.

Energy crop company Ceres also won a separate grant ($5m) from the DOE to develop high-yielding, low-input energy grasses. The company aims to expand an advanced trait development project to increase biomass yields of several energy grasses by as much as 40%, and at the same time decreasing the use of inputs such as nitrogen fertilizers.

This "amazing grass" could displace 1.3 billion barrels of oil and 58 million tons of coal over a ten year period, according to Ceres.

Aside from the Rivertop Renewables and Elevance news, here's another one from Zeachem, who announced yesterday about their new semi works scale cellulosic biorefinery being constructed in Colorado. The facility will have capacity to produce 250,000 gallons of biofuel per year using the company's naturally occurring bacteria, called an acetogen.

The company is working with Hazen Research, Inc. of Golden, Colorado to construct the critical first step of the biorefinery fermentation process. Zeachem says its hybrid biorefinery platform based on biochemical and thermochemical processing can produce ethanol fuel and intermediate chemicals using flexible feedstock.

ZeaChem intends in 2013 to scale to a commercial biorefinery of around 25m gal/year in Boardman, Oregon, upon successful operations at the semi-works scale facility.

For more information on Zeachem's project:

In an application filed by Elevance late last month to the Iowa Dept. of Economic Development (IDED) for funding assistance, the company said the proposed biorefinery will convert renewable raw materials primarily sourced from Iowa such as soybean oil, ethanol DDG corn oil, animal fats, algae oil and other emerging oils, into olefins, fuels and specialty chemicals.

About 15-16 million pounds/year of vegetable oil feedstock could be used to operate the proposed facility at 90% capacity. According to Elevance, success of the demo plant will enable the company to retrofit existing biodiesel facilities in Iowa with a fully diversified biorefinery.

REG is expected to provide their existing biodiesel production plant in Newton for the biorefinery location as well as provide their experiences in raw material sourcing/transportation/handling, and in constructing novel, continuous flow operating systems.

REG's experience in fuel and glycerin marketing and logistics will also come in handy, the company said.

Elevance is seeking $800,000 in financial assistance from the IDED and another $2.67 million from the Iowa Power Fund to contribute to the $8.7m estimated cost of the project through 2011. The rest will be funded by the company.

According to the filing, the project is estimated to create around 40-60 full time jobs in 2010 for engineering construction, site preparation and installation. The project will create 7 permanent jobs when the biorefinery starts around 4th quarter of 2010. Full operating capacity is expected in 2012.

Elevance said the company is actively considering locations outside Iowa such as Illinois, Washinigton, Texas and Louisiana, if the project will not proceed in Iowa.

I received an email about Missoula, Montana-based Rivertop Renewables who is developing glucaric acid, a sugar-based acid created by oxidizing glucose which can be used as a building block chemical.

According to the company, the US Department of Energy recognized glucaric acid as one of the top "twelve building block chemicals" that can be subsequently converted to a number of high-value bio-based chemicals or materials.

The markets for glucaric acid derivatives such as glucarates and lactones are said to be undeveloped as they are expensive and the supply has been limited, with most being use for research or as a health supplement ingredient.

Rivertop Renewables said that they were able to develop a scalable, cost-effective and safe glucaric acid production technology based on 10 years of research that started at the University of Montana. Early markets for their product include, among others, detergents (as a builder to replace phosphates), diapers (increasing its biodegradability), road salt deicers (as corrosion inhibitors); and as concrete admixtures.

The company says replacing phosphates in detergents alone represents a $9 billion market opportunity.To produce the acid, the company is using a proprietary oxidation technology.

"We refined the oxidation of nitric acid into a catalytic process that reduces the amount of needed nitric acid, minimizes the production of waste, and increases the yield of valuable end-use products," says Don Kiely founder and chairman. "The oxidation platform is adaptable to feedstocks beyond glucose such as sucrose and xylose."

The company is in the midst of their first round of funding of $1.4 million, and said to be in talks with major manufacturers that can make and distribute their chemicals at low cost.

Here are some of the recent ones that came out on the news as well as comments from the American Chemistry Council (ACC) on these findings:

• Consumer Reports Study Detected BPA in Some Canned Foods (see ACC comment)
  

• An investigation from Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), American Nurses Association (ANA) and Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) revealed that the chemicals BPA, phthalates, PBDEs and PFCs are found in the bodies of health care professionals who participated in the study.(see ACC comment)
  

• High levels of workplace exposure to BPA may increase the risk of reduced sexual function in men, according to a Kaiser Permanente study. (see ACC comment)
  

• A study from the National Institute of Health Sciences (NIEHS) found a link between maternal exposure to BPA in early pregnancy and the behaviour of female children up to the age of two years. (see ACC comment)
  
  

The ACC noted that the researchers of this study acknowledged that their results are not straightforward.

"It appears that the researchers selectively excluded data, eliminating certain subjects from the analysis, in order to strengthen their conclusion. Even the phraseology of the paper is more sensationalistic than scientific." - ACC

Here are last week's news in no particular order. I will put a separate post about the DOE's biomass grant announced last week.

More money for Metabolix
Bioplastic developer Metabolix has completed its public offering of 3,450,000 shares of its common stock at a price of $9.00 per share for gross proceeds of $31 million. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for working capital and other general corporate purposes.

Recycled plastic bridges
Axion International Holdings completed its $957,000 contract for the construction of two railroad bridges designed from nearly 100% recycled plastics. The US Army has commissioned each of these bridges to be built at Fort Eustis, Virginia.

Carpet fiber eco-certified
Invista said it is the first company to obtain Environmentally Preferable Product (EPP) certification for its carpet fibers under a new, expanded standard by third-party certification company Scientific Certification Systems (SCS).

Biomass fuel plant approved
renewaFUEL LLC plans to construct and operate its next-generation biomass fuel production facility at the Telkite Technology Park near Marquette, Michigan. The plant will produce 150,000 tons/year of high-energy, low-emission biofuel cubes, a composite of collected wood and agricultural feedstocks supplied from local farmers and loggers for the facility.

GE's biggest wind service deal
GE and E.ON Climate & Renewables North America signed a 7-year operation and maintenance agreement covering EC&R's complete fleet of 529 GE wind turbines installed in the United States. The O&M deal is one of the largest wind services agreements ever signed by GE.

And in ICIS news (requires subscription):
Bioplastics' share of auto sector to increase, a consultant with BeOne Hamburg reported.

French chemical maker Arkema forecast that 10% of its sales will come from renewable resources.

Producing biodiesel from sugarcane is less than five years away from becoming commercially viable, as illustrated by two US companies.

The company is formally launching on Wednesday its new zero-emission Acrodur® acrylic thermosets for automotive applications. The new acrylics are thermally cross-linkable, said to be free of formaldehyde and other emissions, and offer new routes to innovative composite materials.

With the product, natural-based fibers such as wood, flax, hemp or sisal can be resinated in different ways for used in the production of shaped panels for automobile interiors. Kettering University, which released the news, said that the green acrylic can provide a great variety of other natural and man-made fibers of the nonwoven industry or even granulated materials, which can be bonded with the new binder system.

Another interesting news from Eastman is that it recently expanded its bulk storage capacity in the European Union (EU) for its non-phthalate plasticizers Eastman™ 168 and Eastman™ DBT. The company said demand for non-phthalate plasticizers in Europe has been increasing, and that customers need the reliability and quick availability of large quantities of local supply.