17th ICABR Conference
“Innovation and Policy for the Bioeconomy”
Ravello (Italy): June 18 - 21, 2013
Innovation Networks in
Second-Generation Ethanol
Luiz Gustavo Antonio de Souza
Márcia Azanha Ferraz dias de Moraes
Maria Ester Soares Dal Poz
José Maria Jardim da Silveira
Context
 There is an increasing demand for bioenergy;
 The global market has seen second-generation (2G)
ethanol – produced by bioconversion of
lignocellulosic material - as an essential alternative
to reach this demand;
 There is no defined technology path to hydrolysis
conversion;
 There are higher economic gains to be the patent
holder;
 The production process of 2G ethanol is hightechnology intensive;
 The investments in 2G ethanol could generate spillovers effects across sectors of economy; and
 Enterprises have tried to initiate a production of 2G
ethanol in a commercial scale.
Research Question
 What is the state-of-art on innovation of
second-generation ethanol?
Objective
 To build and to analyze Second-Generation
Ethanol Innovation Networks
Construction of a Hypothetical Network
Actor
Interactions
A01
A02
A03
A04
A05
A06
A07
A08
A09
A10
A11
A12
A13
A14
A15
A02, A05, A09, P01
A01, A03, A06, A09, A11, A12, P01
A02
None
A01, A02, A12, A14, P01
A05
None
A02, A14, P01
A01, A02, A12
A11, A12, P01
A02, A10
A02, A09, P01
None
P01
None
P01
A01, A02, A03, A05, A06, A08, A10, A11, A12, A14
 Each actor represents a node
with their respective
interactions
 Each node could have an edge
shared between nodes
Isolated
nodes
Bidirectional flow
 The number of links represents the relationships
between agents in the network
 A network with a large number of relationships
has higher density compared to single actors.
 It is possible to check if an actor is central in
relation to others, ie, greater number of
relationships occur only with a specific actor
 It is possible to analyze the density of relations,
ie, how strong are the links between the actors.
Edges
Node
Undirectional flow
Dataset Construction
 Pre dataset: Second-generation ethanol background – first
approach in ISI Web of Science (scientific papers), USPTO,
WIPO and EPO (patents) databases;

To help the query definition
 Final dataset: Definition of a 2G ethanol query

to build the final database: query was used to search in
titles, abstracts and key-words of papers, plus claims in
patent cases
 Available data until 24th October 2012;
 Databases: ISI Web of Science (scientific papers) and PatBase
(patents);
 Final result: Importing data to The VantagePoint software to
deal, clean and export data
 Networks Measures: Exporting data to UCINET software
 Networks Visualization: Exporting UCINET files to Gephi
software
Query
Query for Scientific Papers
Query
TS=(*ethan* OR *energ*) AND TS=(*sugar* OR *cane* OR bagas* OR straw* OR cogener*) AND
TS=(*conversion* OR *lign* OR *cellul*) AND TS=(*hydrolys* OR *ferment* OR *enzym* OR fung* OR
*bac* OR *pressur* OR steam* OR chem* OR sacch* OR microb* OR clostrid* OR thermocell* OR *spor*
OR *cocc* OR erwinia* OR strept* OR sclerot* OR phaneroch* OR trichod* OR asperg* OR schizoph* OR
*penicill* OR SCP OR “Single Cell” OR *xyl*)
Databases=SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI, CPCI-S, CPCI-SSH Timespan=All Years
Lemmatization=On
Searching for scientific papers in topics: key-words, title, abstract - ISI Web of Science*
Source: ISI (2012). *6.053 papers until 24th oct. 2012.
Query for Scientific Patents
Query
((((TAC=(ethan* OR energ*)) AND (TAC=(sugar* OR cane* OR bagas* OR straw* OR cogener*))) AND
(TAC=(conversion* OR lign* OR cellul*))) AND (TAC=(hydrolys OR ferment* OR enzym* OR fung* OR high
pressure OR steam* OR chemic* OR sacch* OR microb* OR clostridium OR thermocellum OR
thermomonospora OR ruminococcus OR erwinia OR streptomyces OR sclerotium OR phanerochaete OR
trichoderma OR aspergillus OR schizophyllum OR penicillium OR scp OR single cell OR xylose)))
Searching for patents in topics: title, abstract and claims - PatBase*
Fonte: PatBase (2012). *3.334 papers until 24th oct. 2012.
Second-generation cluster of papers by country
 US has the leadership in
publishing papers (22.44%)
focused in second-generation
ethanol and correlated
areas;
 The red central area shows
the relationship of US and
other countries –
international collaboration
(23.67%) - and the papers
produced in national
collaboration (76.33%);
 After US the main countries
are: China (9.84%), Brazil
(4.99%), Japan (4.78%), India
(4.30%), Germany (4.17%),
Canada (3.96%), UK (3.51%),
Spain (3.45%) and Sweeden
(3.32%).
Innovation Network in 2G ethanol: countries
 US and Germany are prefered in
a scientific collaboration point
of view (preferential
attachement);
 US have the higher centrality
index
 Considering the knowledge
diffusion, US have higher
probability of being a leader in
technology process of
lignocelullosic convertion;
 There is a relevant global
interest of developing process in
2G ethanol.
Innovation Network in 2G ethanol: institutions
 Institutional efforts in 2G
ethanol is concentrated in
USDA, University of California ,
USP and NREL;
 Brazil: only USP (University of
São Paulo) places among the
main institutions – reflects the
expertise of Brazillian
production of ethanol based on
sugarcane;
 USA: there is an intense
relationship between
government and university,
reflected in USDA
(government) and University of
California position – US focused
in programs promoting
advanced fuels and low
emissions specifications.
Californa State has a special
normative system focused to
biofuels.
Innovation Network in 2G ethanol: KeyWord Plus
 KeyWord Plus is a special
algorithm provided by ISI
WoS (Thomson) that not
evolves the author’s
choice in traditional keywords. The process
corroborates the
methodological procedure
of searching;
 The Innovation Network
shows the main research
areas related to 2G
ethanol; and
 After direct areas like
ethanol and fermentation,
there are research related
to Enzymatic Hydrolysis
(Hydrolysis, SimultaneousSaccharification,
Escherichia-Coli).
Innovation Network in 2G ethanol: citations
 The Network have a scalefree configuration – There
are prefered actors to cite or
make papers in a
collaborative perspective;
 Lynd, Mosier, Wyman and Sun
are the prefered in the
network – the papers are
focused mainly in 2G process
and enzymatic hydrolysis;
 Efforts to intensificate a
international collaboration
focused in 2G ethanol have
to reflect the aspect that
rich-get-richer (people
prefered to collaborate with
famous against unknown
researchers).
Patent agencies
 USPTO and WIPO are the
prefered agencies to request
a patent; and
 Policies to promote firms in
2G ethanol sector must focus
in the main agencies against
local
Second generation papers by companies/institutions
 Networks based on Patents in
2G ethanol show that the
main efforts are being made
by enterprises who have
large production in medical
sector (P&G, Lilly, Oreal);
300
250
200
150
100
50
 University of California has
an important place among
firms who patented in 2G
and correlated areas of
ethanol – shows that the US
efforts in a collaborative
perspective (governmentuniversity) are effective; and
 The results of IPC8 patent
class shows that the main
efforts are made in enzymes
development, DNA
recombinant technology and
medical activities.
0
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
Innovatgion Network in 2G ethanol: IPC8 patent class
 The agregate class of IPC8
reveal a Network based on
patents in 2G ethanol not
exclusively based on
fermentation and enzymatic
hydrolysis. There are a large
sinergy with medical and
reengineering areas
(specially A61 area);
 The economic gains of
investing in 2G ethanol
technology could overflow to
other areas; and
 Firms in medical areas may
have advantages (scope
economies) to develop new
methods in enzymatic
hydrolysis and fermentation.
 National Policies have to
reflect this aspects.
Final Remarks
 US places as principal actor in the state-of-art in
second-generation ethanol with higher centrality
position and effective institutional efforts;
 There are larger benefits to medical enterprises
making relationships through lignocellulosic procedures
of obtaining 2G ethanol;
 There is a diversity of countries who wants develop
technology in 2G ethanol specially in a partnership
with US;
 The policemakers have to considerate that US already
have a important position in state-of-art in 2G ethanol,
making him a potential seller of technology based in
that efforts; and
 Countries like Brazil, who have a significant production
in first generation ethanol (in this case sugarcane), do
not play a central position on inovation on 2G ethanol
 Should increase the efforts on research and
development otherwise will be technology pathdependent of the main countries
Innovation Networks in
Second-Generation Ethanol
Márcia Azanha Ferraz dias de Moraes
[email protected]