A handful of industrial biotechnology companies have the strength and purpose to make it as a public company — others remain private, are acquired, or wind down. What makes companies able to succeed with public investors? What combination of product mix, experienced management, technologies that excel, capital at work, and effective vision make it possible […]
A handful of industrial biotechnology companies have the strength and purpose to make it as a public company — others remain private, are acquired, or wind down. What makes companies able to succeed with public investors? What combination of product mix, experienced management, technologies that excel, capital at work, and effective vision make it possible […]
Why should DOE work on plastics circularity? For one, ~2-3% of total energy consumption in the US is used to manufacture plastics, resins, and synthetic rubber. Also, plastic production generates ~3.8% of global GHGs. Finally, plastic production uses ~6% of global oil production, representing a large opportunity for further energy and process efficiency improvements. These […]
A team of researchers partnered with Visolis to develop a hydrogenolysis catalyst that can operate at low-pressures (≤ 5 MPa) and demonstrate conversion of a fermentation-derived C6 intermediate to a high value chemical monomer. The rewards? Risk and cost reduction for bioproduct process commercialization. And, developing a stable and selective catalyst for biomass conversion R&D. […]
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 […]
