Center for Bioenergy Innovation research supports Terragia biofuels approach

In Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory reported that startup firm Terragia Biofuels is targeting commercial biofuels production using technology developed by researchers working with the Center for Bioenergy Innovation at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Dartmouth College. 

New Hampshire-based Terragia plans to commercialize an approach that uses feedstocks such as plant-based lignocellulose — the tough, fibrous parts of plants that aren’t consumed as food — to make ethanol and other products at a much lower cost than today’s technology. The approach leverages bacteria that are good at digesting and converting plant waste in a one-step consolidated bioprocessing method without the addition of costly enzymes or thermochemical pretreatment currently used in conventional approaches to ethanol production, ORNL said.

Terragia’s technology uses engineered bacteria such as Clostridium thermocellum that thrive at high temperatures and accomplish, in a single process, the release of soluble sugars from plant waste and fermentation of those sugars to make ethanol or other biofuels. The consolidated bioprocessing occurs without the addition of oxygen and has documented potential to substantially reduce capital costs and process energy inputs.

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