A review of the patent publications from summer 2012 indicates that research may be starting to coalesce around several types of biofuel materials and precursors. In fact, many of the patent publications reviewed herein focus on increasing efficiency of the production process and producing better versions of starter materials. Some of the most significant areas of development are efforts to commercialize and scale-up algae production, along with the production and modification of fermenters.
At the outset, a brief discussion of the nature of patents and the patent process would be instructive. There are two types of published patent applications—those that have issued and those that have published but are still pending and under examination. This article will primarily focus on patent publications, since those documents are indicative of more recent research and development of biofuels. In fact, the patent applications being published now were first filed between March 2010 and July 2010.
An issued patent has a fixed set of claims at the end that define the invention regardless of what is included in the detailed description section. Anyone reviewing issued patents for an indication of the actual invention should turn to the claims section first. The detailed description section should primarily be used to provide context of the claims and/or definitions of some of the terms/phrases in the claims. Issued patents are in force 20 years from the filing date and give the patent owner the right to exclude others from making, using, and/or selling the claimed invention in the country where the patent issued. Published patent applications are useful to provide notice to the general public and competitors as to potential future patents and their scope. Between the filing date or priority date of the application and the publication date, the patent application is not published and, therefore, not readily available to the public for review.
Inventors use pending patent publications to put likely competitors on notice that they may have enforceable patent rights at some point in the future. Competitors use patent publications to scope out the technology landscape. It is important to note, however, that the existence of a patent publication does not necessarily mean that a patent will issue from that application or that the final issued set of claims will be the same or resemble the claims in the publication. In many instances, these publications have either just started being examined by the United States Patent & Trademark Office or have not yet begun the examination process. Therefore, these publications should primarily be used for notice and information purposes.
Patent applications filed prior to the beginning of 2009 had a significant focus on new biofuel starter materials, along with new and streamlined processes. Publications emerging in 2012 appear to be shifting in the direction of working with known biofuel materials and aimed at improving the material and/or improving the process. There are also groups of publications focused on fuel optimization through the addition of other components and/or better engine design.
This article is not intended to advocate for or determine the patentability of any of these technologies; the content is directed to an objective summary of some of the biofuel-related patent art. The article touches on three different categories of biofuel and biofuel-related patents and publications: increasing the efficiency of the biofuel production process, biofuel starter materials, and biofuels-related applications.
Process Efficiency
This category regularly makes up the largest class of patents, patent publications, and journal articles, primarily because it is often easier to optimize the production of existing and known biofuels as opposed to developing and testing potential new biofuels.
US Patent Publication 2012/0220667, Use of methylsulfonylmethane (MSM) to inhibit microbial activity
(inventors: Rodney L. Benjamin, et al.; assignee: Biogenic Innovations, LLC; August 30, 2012), teaches the use of MSM in various concentrations in order to either enhance or suppress microbial activity. Specifically, as the abstract and detailed description state, “In one example, MSM (such as about 0.5% to 5% MSM) is used to enhance fermentation efficiency, such as to enhance fermentation efficiency associated with the production of beer, cider, wine, a biofuel, dairy product or any combination thereof. Also disclosed are in vitro methods for enhancing the growth of one or more probiotic microorganisms and methods of enhancing growth of a microorganism in a diagnostic test sample…In one particular example, a method of inhibiting microbial activity includes selecting a medium that is susceptible to H1N1 influenza contamination; and contacting the medium with MSM at a concentration of about 10% to about 16% of weight by volume, thereby inhibiting H1N1 influenza microbial activity.”
US Patent Publication 2012/0220018, Method for nutrient pre-loading of microbial cells
(inventor: David A. Hazlebeck; assignee: General Atomics; August 30, 2012), discloses methods of “supporting the growth of selected microbial cells and for obstructing the growth of contaminants in a non-sterile system” by pre-loading the microbial cells “with a surplus amount of a chosen nutrient, such as phosphorus, other macronutrients, or micronutrients.” The inventors then state that the nutrient, on its own, can either be eliminated or added in a reduced amount to the system. The pre-loading accomplishes the desirable effect of not providing the nutrients for non-selected microbial strains or bacteria to survive, thereby diminishing their presence in solution.
Improvements in Current Starter Materials
Despite the fact that there are several biofuel starter materials that are viable, mature, non-food based, and widely studied, new potential biofuel materials and modified mature biofuel materials are being studied. Many of these biofuel starter materials are emerging because of a particular type of regional crop or a need to produce biofuels that can be utilized near the source of the crops. Many of the new publications are focusing on altering the structure of conventional materials in order to make them easier and/or less costly to process, increase biofuel yield, or a combination thereof.
US Patent Publication 2012/0220007, Production of secreted bioproducts from photosynthetic microbes
(inventor: Jeffrey Charles Way, et al.; assignee: President and Fellows of Harvard College; August 30, 2012), discloses the use of recombinant photosynthetic bacteria, including recombinant cyanobacteria, as a starter material for biofuel production. The abstract and detailed description state that “embodiments of the invention provide for the genetic engineering of photosynthetic bacteria to express and secrete a product of interest, such as hexose sugars or lactate. More specifically, the recombinant cyanobacteria express heterologous genes for both product expression and secretion. In some embodiments, the recombinant cyanobacteria express heterologous genes for secretion of products coupled to a pH gradient across a cell membrane. Sugars, such as sucrose, glucose and fructose, and other useful chemicals, such as lactic acid, are produced via the invention.” Independent claim 1 recites, “a recombinant photosynthetic bacterium comprising at least one heterologous enzyme and at least one heterologous transporter, wherein said transporter mediates the secretion of a product whose synthesis is enhanced by said enzyme.” Independent claim 29 claims a method of producing a product.
US Patent Publication 2012/0220006, Hydrogen production from microbial strains
(inventor: Caroline S. Harwood, et al.; assignee: University of Washington; August 30, 2012), teaches identifying and then screening for microbial strains that can generate hydrogen. The processes of identifying these microbial strains, isolating those strains, and then producing hydrogen from those strains are all disclosed. Specifically, the independent claim in the publication recites, “A method of producing hydrogen, said method comprising: providing a microbe expressing a NifA protein comprising an activating mutation; wherein the activating mutation relieves GAF domain repression of NifA transactivating activity and results in constitutive transactivation of a gene in a nitrogenase gene cluster; wherein the activating mutation comprises a mutation located in the linker region between the GAF regulatory domain and the AAA+ ATPase domain; and incubating the microbe in a culture medium under conditions effective for the microbe to produce hydrogen; thereby providing increased hydrogen production.” This publication not only discloses the identification of those starter materials that produce hydrogen, but also methods to achieve process efficiency.
US Patent Publication 2012/0210468, Novel method to generate commercially useful oils in algae
(inventor: Chifu Huang, et al.; assignee: Dr. Chifu Huang; August 16, 2012), is one of many patent publications that seeks to improve the commercial prospects of algae as a biofuel starter material. In this publication, the inventors disclose a “microalgae-based method, called Microalgae Genomics Technology™ (MaGT), which can be used to generate and improve oil/fatty acid production in microalgae, and revealed some examples of its potential applications. Specifically, this method utilizes microalgae genomics technology to manipulate the intrinsic oil/fatty acid metabolic pathways in the genomes of microalgae and therefore induce the algae to produce novel oils/fatty acids or increase the concentration of existing oils/fatty acids with a variety of commercial applications.” The publication also discloses: “The basis of MaGT™ is that random activation mutations are induced in a large number of microalgal cells using the intrinsic pathways. These cells then form a population of mutant clones, in which each clone is over-expressing one or more activated genes. Extracts from individual clones are then tested for the required biological activity in a high throughput screen (HTS). With this MaGT technology (see examples) and (high-throughput screening) HTS screening method, we were able to produce novel compounds in the mutant algae that included novel oils/fatty acids, and also increased the production of existing oils/fatty acids.”
Biofuels-Related Applications
US Patent Publication 2012/0220027
, Magnetically coupled system for mixing
(inventor: Harlan Miller, III, et al.; assignee: Algenol Biofuels Inc.; August 30, 2012), discloses a mixing system for cultivating algae or cyanobacteria in an open or enclosed vessel. The Background of this patent publication describes several commonly used processes and machinery used to mix and cultivate algae, but points out that many of these methods use too much energy to be cost-effective. Therefore, the inventors propose systems and processes that promote “effective mixing and gas transfer in vessels such as bioreactors and photobioreactors while maintaining structural integrity of the vessel, minimizing risk of contamination of the contents of the vessel, minimizing exposure of pumps and other mixing drive system components to corrosive agents in the vessel and facilitating ease of maintaining the drive system components. Various mixing apparatuses rely on the use of rotary impellers and similar elements that are not physically connected to a drive motor but instead are driven by magnetic coupling.” Specifically, and as claimed, the inventors utilize “a magnetically coupled mixing system comprising a mixing vessel; a liquid mixture disposed within the reactor vessel; a drive conduit; a drive element disposed within the drive conduit and adapted to move in a longitudinal direction within the drive conduit; a follower member having a first distal end and a second distal end, wherein the follower member is disposed around the perimeter of the drive conduit and is adapted to move longitudinally along the drive conduit; a magnetic follower element disposed within the follower member, wherein the magnetic follower element is adapted to couple magnetically with the drive element and is proximally disposed outside the drive conduit; a foil having a surface shaped or configured to provide hydrodynamic lift, wherein the foil is disposed at least partially in the liquid mixture; and a support member connecting the foil and the follower member.”
The automobile industry has been working to design a hybrid engine and system that can utilize biofuels, while at the same time provide power and acceleration that satisfy the driver. US Patent Publication 2012/0211286, Hybrid variant automobile drive
(inventor: Wayne Woodson; assignee: Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing; August 23, 2012) discloses an automobile that uses an engine that can utilize any number of fuels, such as biofuels, along with a supplemental motor/capacitor system that utilizes an energy generation unit to charge the capacitor. The supplemental motor system is designed to provide additional power and acceleration to the automobile.
US Patent Publication 2012/0209045, Diesel and jet fuels based on the oligomerization of butene
(inventor: Michael E. Wright, et al.; August 16, 2012) discloses a biofuel that may be used as part of a jet fuel blend. The inventors claim that the carbon use is 95% or greater. Independent claim 1 recites, “A process for conversion of 1-butene to butene oligomers comprising: activating a bis(cyclopentadienyl)zirconium dichloride pre-catalyst with methylaluminoxane in aromatic solvents without heteroatoms; removing the solvent to form an activated catalyst; mixing linear or branched hydrocarbon alkanes having C4 to about C20 with the activated catalyst to form a slurry; adding dried 1-butene to slurry to form a mixture; stirring the mixture to allow contact of reactants at ambient temperature in a gas tight vessel until reaction is complete to form a first mixture of butene oligomers.” Related processes for production are also disclosed and claimed. The inventors state that “the batch catalysis approach disclosed requires a minimal input of energy and hydrogen to make fuels that possess useful flash points, coldflow properties, and solution density/energy content. This new process affords a saturated hydrocarbon fuel that has a high solution density and thus possesses a higher calculated power density (per volume) than similar fuels made by the GTL Fischer-Tropsch processes.”
Conclusions
During the last two years, a majority of the biofuels-related patent applications filed have been directed to new production processes, making the current conventional processes more efficient and/or productive, and refining current starter materials or developing new starter materials that are non-food-based and can be used to improve both yield and efficiency. There has also been no apparent decrease in the number of biofuels-related patent applications, and it is highly likely that this trend will continue well into 2012 and 2013.
