By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
On August 29, 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announced that through the funding opportunity entitled “Accelerating Innovations in Biomanufacturing Approaches through Collaboration Between [the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)] and the DOE BETO funded Agile BioFoundry (ABF),” researchers will collaborate with the ABF consortium’s synthetic and bioengineering research projects. BETO and NSF have selected the following projects:

• Enabling Scalable Redox Reactions in Biomanufacturing (University of California, Irvine, and University of California, Davis): This project will enhance the carbon and energy efficiency of a biomanufacturing process by upgrading carboxylic acids into precursors for biofuels and chemicals used in industry. The goal is to create a more efficient process for carboxylic acid reduction that does not release any carbon into the atmosphere. The team will work to identify the principles necessary to enhance efficiency in the enzymes used in the process. Through outreach efforts, the researchers will provide hands-on exposure to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields for largely Hispanic populations and women, both groups underrepresented in science and engineering.
   
• A Synthetic Biology Toolbox for Studying Bacterial Transporters (University of Wisconsin -- Madison): This project will develop and use tools to close knowledge gaps surrounding transporters in Gram negative bacteria to facilitate the development of superior biomanufacturing hosts. Specifically, they will work to identify proteins that enhance the uptake of nutrients into the cells of microbes and the removal of toxic products. The work will enable the development of superior biomanufacturing microbial hosts and support translational research. Activities that teach biomanufacturing concepts to K-8 students and recruitment of underrepresented researchers will broaden the impacts of the work.
   
• Leveraging the Unique Metabolism of Megasphaera elsdenii for Metabolic Engineering to Medium and Long Chain Organic Acids for Use in Jet Fuels and Biomaterials (University of Georgia): The project will work to increase understanding of the metabolic pathways that allow the microorganism Megasphaera elsdenii to produce hexanoic acid, that can be engineered to create sustainable aviation fuel among a host of other products. Understanding how octanoic acid is created in this organism will enable scientists better to convert plant sugars to longer chain molecules and will provide paths for alternative approaches to bioprocessing. The team will recruit students from underrepresented groups and create classroom resources for use in elementary schools.

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By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
On July 27, 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announced that its Feedstock-Conversion Interface Consortium (FCIC) recently published eight new technical reports and case studies. According to BETO, the publications examine the environmental and economic impacts of a variety of feedstock characteristics and processing techniques:

• Life-Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emission Impacts of Forest Residue Preprocessing with Wet Milling;
• Comparative Techno-Economic Analysis of Available Feedstocks for High-Temperature Conversion: Whole Tree Thinning’s and Mature Pine Residues;
• Techno-Economic Case Study: Low-Temperature Conversion Performance Based on Isolated Anatomical Fractions of Corn Stover;
• Value Proposition of Coatings or New Alloys on Hammer Wear;
• Air Classification of Forest Residue for Tissue and Ash Separation Efficiency;
• Failure Mode and Effects Analysis Summary Report (FY22);
• Impact of Anatomical Fractionation of Corn Stover on Hammer Mill Throughput and Energy Consumption; and
• Particle Scale Impacts on Deconstruction Energy of Pine Residues.

BETO states that the FCIC “is an integrated and collaborative network of nine DOE national laboratories dedicated to addressing the technical risks that integrated pioneer biorefineries face.” According to BETO, the goal of the FCIC “is to develop science-based knowledge and tools to understand biomass feedstock and process variability, improving overall operational reliability, conversion performance, and product quality across the biomass value chain.”

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By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announced on July 17, 2023, that it will host a Bioenergy Cybersecurity Workshop, a virtual event organized by Sandia National Laboratories on September 11, 2023, to identify cybersecurity risks in biofuel and bioproduct manufacturing, and develop an approach to address these risks. According to BETO, the workshop will raise awareness of the importance of cybersecurity in biomanufacturing safety, operational continuity, and competitiveness. It will consist of panel presentations by bioprocessing and cybersecurity experts. Participants will discuss the state of biofuel and bioproduct cybersecurity practices, and the security of biobased processes to help identify and define cybersecurity technologies and research needed for cybersecure bioenergy production. Workshop objectives will include:

• Exploring the risks and potential consequences to biofuel and bioproduct production that stem from cybersecurity vulnerabilities;
• Discussing the state of practice in biofuel and bioproduct cybersecurity;
• Gathering stakeholder input on what research and development is needed to fill capability gaps in cybersecurity for bioenergy facilities; and
• Building connections across the bioenergy cybersecurity community.

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By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) hosted its 2023 Project Peer Review on April 3-7, 2023. During the event, more than 280 projects in BETO’s research, development, and demonstration portfolios presented their progress and accomplishments to the public and were reviewed by more than 50 external subject-matter experts from industry, academia, and federal agencies. The 2023 Project Peer Review included presentations in 11 technology areas:

• Advanced Algal Systems Program;
• Biochemical Conversion and Lignin Utilization;
• Agile BioFoundry Consortium;
• Catalytic Upgrading;
• Carbon Dioxide Utilization;
• Data, Modeling, and Analysis Program;
• Performance-Advantaged Bioproducts, Bioprocessing Separations, and Plastics;
• Organic Waste Conversion;
• Feedstock Technologies Program;
• Feedstock-Conversion Interface Consortium; and
• Systems Development & Integration Program.

The presentations are now available for download from BETO’s Project Peer Review web page.

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By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announced on May 30, 2023, that the Chemical Catalysis for Bioenergy Consortium (ChemCatBio) will hold a webinar on June 14, 2023, on “Perspectives on Engineered Catalyst Design and Forming.” ChemCatBio is a consortium of eight DOE national laboratories overseen by BETO. According to BETO, the performance evaluation, and ultimate commercial adoption, of next-generation catalyst materials requires the development of strategies to prepare complex engineered catalysts suitable for operation in commercially relevant reactor configurations and scales. To leverage the fundamental advancements ChemCatBio has made in catalyst technology, BETO states that the consortium recently implemented a new vision to address risks by focusing on process integration and fuel production with engineered catalysts.
 
In the webinar, Bruce Adkins (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Frederick Baddour (National Renewable Energy Laboratory), and Matthew Greaney (Clariant) will present critical considerations for the “engineered” catalyst; an industrial perspective on catalyst design and forming; and ChemCatBio’s industry-informed capabilities that support the transition to more commercially relevant catalyst forms. The webinar will end with a question and answer session.

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By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced on May 24, 2023, the launch of the Clean Fuels & Products Shot^TM, a new initiative that aims to reduce significantly greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from carbon-based fuels and products. DOE notes that this is its seventh DOE Energy Earthshot, which focuses on reducing carbon emissions from the fuel and chemical industry through alternative, more sustainable sources of carbon to achieve a minimum of 85 percent lower GHG emissions as compared to fossil-based sources by 2035. According to DOE, the Clean Fuels & Products Shot^TM supports the national goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 by developing the sustainable feedstocks and conversion technologies necessary to produce crucial fuels, materials, and carbon-based products that are better for the environment than current petroleum-derived components. It aims to meet projected 2050 net-zero emissions demands for 100 percent of aviation fuel; 50 percent of maritime, rail, and off-road fuel; and 50 percent of carbon-based chemicals by using sustainable carbon resources.
 
DOE notes that a ribbon-cutting took place on May 30, 2023, for the Biofuels National User Facility, a $15 million, three-year-long facility upgrade at Idaho National Laboratory funded by DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) and an important asset to reach the goals of the Clean Fuels & Products Shot^TM. According to DOE, the facility “is designed to solve critical biofuels production challenges associated with the feeding, handling and preprocessing of diverse biomass and waste materials.” DOE states that industry use of the facility “will enable rapid technology development and large-scale commercialization of biofuels and bioproducts, an important component of the Biden-Harris Administration’s goals related to clean fuels and products.”

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 By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) has launched a new, comprehensive web page dedicated to one of its priority subprograms, Renewable Carbon Resources (RCR), which helps develop RCR technologies and creates strategies for bioenergy and bioproducts production. In its May 19, 2023, announcement, BETO states that RCR supports applied research and pilot-scale projects for the production, harvesting/collection, supply logistics, storage, and preprocessing of biomass and wastes to feedstock. According to BETO, RCRs are carbon-based resources generated through photosynthesis (plants and algae) or through waste generation (non-recycled portions of municipal solid waste, biosolids, sludges, plastics, and carbon dioxide and industrial waste gases). The subprogram aims to optimize responsibly the use of each of these resources using sustainability indicators such as land-use changes, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, resource conservation, wildlife habitat, fire mitigation, food security, social well-being, and water, soil, and air quality.
 
The newly launched RCR web page is organized around the following activities:

• Production and sourcing;
• Logistics;
• Feedstock-conversion interface;
• Waste management technologies;
• Environmental remediation; and
• Carbon management.

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By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announced on May 15, 2023, that a new workflow developed by researchers at the Agile BioFoundry (ABF), a BETO-funded consortium of national laboratories and Agilent Research Laboratories (Agilent) addresses the need for faster analytical tools. According to BETO, the workflow “combines state-of-the-art analytical technologies with a machine learning-based algorithm, providing a faster and more powerful way to process data that could accelerate the Design-Build-Test-Learn framework, a bio-engineering cycle used to improve biomanufacturing research and processes.”
 
BETO notes that speeding up the bio-engineering cycle could ultimately speed up biomanufacturing research. According to BETO, one of the biggest barriers to accomplishing this is the ability to improve the Learn step of the cycle, which involves using data to improve future cycles. Improvements to the Learn step can happen only if large amounts of high-quality data are gathered in the Test step of the cycle, however.
 
BETO states that the consortium teams set out to create a workflow that could generate high-quality analytical Test data that could feed into the Learn step. The workflow they developed includes several components:

• A high-throughput analytical method developed in collaboration with Agilent that enables a threefold reduction in sample analysis time (compared to previous conventional approaches) by using optimized liquid chromatography conditions;
• The Automated Method Selection Software tool, which predicts the best liquid chromatography method to use for analyzing new molecules of interest; and
• PeakDecoder, a novel algorithm that processes multi-dimensional metabolite data and automatically calculates errors in metabolite identification.

To test the workflow’s effectiveness, the researchers used it to study metabolites of various strains of microorganisms engineered by ABF. The microorganisms they tested all have the capacity to make various bioproducts, such as polymer and diesel fuel precursors. According to BETO, using their workflow, the researchers were able to interpret 2,683 metabolite features across 116 microbial samples.
 
BETO states that the researchers see PeakDecoder “as a stepping stone towards creating an automated data-gathering pipeline.” According to BETO, the team is already working on leveraging state-of-the-art artificial intelligence methods like computer vision used in other fields. The next version of PeakDecoder is expected to have improved automation and identification performance and to be more applicable to other types of molecular profiling, including proteomics workflows.

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By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) and Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO) will host a workshop on “Transitioning to a Sustainable, Circular Economy for Plastics.” The June 8-9, 2023, workshop will convene stakeholders for a discussion of the current challenges and opportunities in transitioning to a sustainable domestic economy for plastics. According to DOE, it will include experts in recycling technologies and processes; polymer sciences; biobased plastics innovation and manufacturing; and plastics policy, economy, and sustainability. It will feature facilitated panel presentations and discussions on:

• The current landscape of plastics sustainability and circularity;
• Industry metrics in plastics sustainability and circularity;
• Supply chain and technology gaps;
• Decarbonization opportunities and pathways to achieve them; and
• Collaboration across the plastics value chain to accelerate transition to a more sustainable, circular economy.

DOE states that desired workshop outcomes include:

• Direct connections between stakeholders across the value chain to facilitate collaborations to accelerate innovation toward our collective decarbonization and circular economy goals;
• A publicly available, DOE-issued workshop report recording the discussed problems, research ideas, and industry feedback; and
• Input to ensure the DOE Strategy for Plastics Innovation evolves with the rapidly changing landscape to reflect current needs and challenges related to plastics sustainability and circularity.

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By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
Colorado State University (CSU) announced on April 11, 2023, that its chemists, led by Eugene Chen, University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry, have created a synthetic polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) platform. CSU states that PHAs are a class of polymers naturally created by living microorganisms or synthetically produced from biorenewable feedstocks. While they are biodegradable in the ambient environment, they are brittle and cannot easily be melt-processed and recycled. According to CSU, the synthetic PHA platform addresses each of these problems, “paving the way for a future in which PHAs can take off in the marketplace as truly sustainable plastics.”
 
The researchers searched for a strategy to address the intrinsic thermal instability of conventional PHAs. According to CSU, its chemists “made fundamental changes to the structures of these plastics, substituting reactive hydrogen atoms responsible for thermal degradation with more robust methyl groups. This structural modification drastically enhances the PHAs’ thermal stability, resulting in plastics that can be melt-processed without decomposition.” CSU notes that the newly designed PHAs are also mechanically tough, “even outperforming the two most common commodity plastics: high-density polyethylene -- used in products like milk and shampoo bottles -- and isotactic propylene, which is used to make automotive parts and synthetic fibers.” CSU notes that the new PHA can be chemically recycled back to its building-block molecule with a simple catalyst and heat, and the recovered clean monomer can be reused to reproduce the same PHA again.
 
The work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bio-Optimized Technologies to keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment (BOTTLE™), a DOE multi-organization consortium “focused on developing new chemical upcycling strategies for today’s plastics and redesigning tomorrow’s plastics to be recyclable-by-design.” More information is available in a Science article entitled “Chemically circular, mechanically tough, and melt-processable polyhydroxyalkanoates.”

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