What are the best pathways to generating and upgrading biochemical intermediates. For example, wet waste to mixed volatile fatty acids in arrested methanogenesis. Or, sugars to butyric acid, or 2,3 butanediol. Tasks include mitigation of scalability roadblocks, measurement of finished fuel properties and quantification of blend limitations, demonstration of life-cycle GHG emissions, and more. What’s […]
How can a public biofoundry develop and demonstrate capabilities that enable commercially-relevant biomanufacturing of a wide range of bioproducts by both new and established industrial hosts? The ABF has operated as a BETO-supported project since 2016. In 2017 the ABF expanded to a $20M/year BETO-consortium. The goal? To enable biorefineries to achieve 50% reductions in […]
In this project, researchers aim to engineer Polyketide synthase for production of commodity and specialty chemicals. PKSs provide the potential to access a massive chemical space of useful small molecules, and produce these from renewable carbon sources. This project is making an array of valuable products including several novel plastic (nylon) monomers with potentially better […]
In partnership with Sironix, Los Alamos National Lab researchers aimed to develop performance-advantaged biobased surfactants, noting that bifunctional oleo-furans eliminate the need for metal chelator additives; maintain function in hard and cold water. In this project, researchers aimed to reduce barriers to scaling up Sironix technology by addressing catalytic upgrading and process intensification challenges. Xiaokun […]
HARNESS strives to develop a proof-of-concept pilot system designed to break down polyether-polyurethane (PE-PU) foams with engineered enzymes, then convert breakdown intermediates to high-value polyols (POs) and diamines. The primary objective of this project is to develop an innovative platform for waste plastics upcycling to PO and diamines, demonstrated and validated for PE-PU foams, which […]
Development of Bacillus as an industrial host for the microbial production of biopolymers is of industrial interest from lignocellulosic hydrolysates. In this project, researchers worked to apply ZymoChem’s Carbon Conservation (C2) technology in non-model organisms to maximize carbon efficiencies to biopolymers via minimizing loss of CO2 from lignocellulosic hydrolysates. The team applied – ABF’s state […]
Researchers launched a ChemCatBio project to Develop new upgrading technologies enabling cost-competitive conversion of C2 oxygenated intermediates to distillate fuels and valuable co-products. One outcome, the team discovered a catalytic pathway for direct ethanol to butene-rich olefin intermediates, providing control over jet blendstock and co-products, with the potential to obtain a distillate fuel MFSP of […]
Deconstruction is a major effort in BOTTLE (Bio-Optimized Technologies to keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment) . Work spans exploratory catalysis (”fail fast”) to advancing promising approaches towards scale-up. There are a couple of routes: Chemical catalysis for C–C bond cleavage in mixed plastics waste for open-loop recycling; and, Chemical catalysis for PET […]
How robust are the biocatalysts in industrially relevant setups and at scale? How feasible are the bioprocesses at scale? How can we improve the performance of the biocatalysts while developing bioprocesses? To answer these questions, researchers launched a Process and Integration Scale Up Task to conduct bioreactor cultivations for ABF Target-Host pairs across scales, integrate […]
The ChemCatBio Consortium has a project focused on upgrading C2s. Specifically, to develop novel catalytic upgrading technologies that enable cost-competitive conversion of cellulosic ethanol to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). We aim to develop a commercially viable process within the concept of an integrated biorefinery that lowers fuel production costs and carbon intensity to aid in […]
