UniQuest brokers international biofuel partnership

Biofuels are already a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide, and now the University of Queensland and Clemson University in South Carolina, US, are looking to collaborate to become significant players in the growing space.

A new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), brokered by UniQuest, the University of Queensland’s research commercialisation company, between the two institutions promises collaborative effort focusing on sugarcane conversion to ethanol; cellulosic conversion to biodiesel technologies; biodiesel applications such as military, mining, industrial and personal transportation; and tapping into the energy stores of the non-edible parts of sugarcane and sorghum.

According to UniQuest Managing Director, David Henderson, the two universities had synergistic interests when it came to biofuels research.

“We wanted to bring Clemson’s intellectual property in cellulosic conversion technologies t o Australia because there’s a clear alignment with UQ’s research excellence in biomass crop selection, breeding, genomic analysis and yield improvement. Under this agreement we can offer industry partners unique benefits of scale,” Mr Henderson said.

Director of commercialisation and technology incubation at Clemson University, Karl Kelly, said the collaboration will foster new energy strategies. “Joint research will focus on how to provide new fuels that will enable energy independence, development of novel technologies for biofuel production, and how best to produce ‘green' and readily available fuels to secure economic development in South Carolina and Queensland,” he said.

The MOU was witnessed and endorsed on 27 June by Queensland Premier Anna Bligh at the BIO 2011 Convention held in Washington D.C. in the United States.