DuPont (Wilmington, Del.; www.dupont.com) and NexSteppe (Malibu, Calif.; www.nexsteppe.com) have entered into a collaboration to develop advanced feedstocks for biofuels and other bio-based products. The collaboration will focus on the development of new sweet sorghum and high-biomass sorghum hybrids that will create additional feedstock options for bio-based products. Under the agreement, DuPont has made an equity investment in NexSteppe, and will provide resources through its Pioneer Hi-Bred (Des Moines, Iowa; www.pioneer.com) business to help the company accelerate the breeding and commercialization of new hybrids of these crops in the U.S. and Brazil.
For more on bio-based production, see The Bio-Based Economy (Chemical Engineering, August 2011) and Bio-Based Chemicals Get Real (Chemical Engineering, July 2010)