Program Achievements

Below are some of the awards that we've won and project sucesses that we've achieved:

R&D 100 Awards

2006 R&D 100 Award: Separative Bioreactors - Argonne National Laboratory and Archer Daniels Midland Company

2004 R&D 100 Award: Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Biomass Cellulose to Sugars (for the production of fuels and chemicals) - Genencor International, Novozymes Biotech Inc., National Renewable Energy Laboratory

2000 R&D 100 Award: Real-Time Biomass Analysis (with near-infrared spectrometry and multivariate analysis), National Renewable Energy Laboratory

1998 R&D 100 Award: High Throughput Biomass Gasifier. - Battelle Memorial Institute, Burlington Electric Department, NREL, and Future Energy Resources Corporation

1998 R&D 100 Award: Yeast Strain 1400 LNH-ST (ferments five-and six-carbon sugars) - Swan Biomass and N. Ho, Purdue University (Biofuels Program funding)

1997 R&D 100 Award: Production of Chemicals from Biologically Derived Succinic Acid - Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Argonne National Laboratory; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; National Renewable Energy Laboratory; Applied Carbochemicals, Inc.

1995 R&D 100 Award: Single Fermenter Cellulosic Biocatalyst – National Renewable Energy Laboratory

1993 R&D 100 Award: Ethanol from Corn Fiber - National Renewable Energy Laboratory and New Energy Company of Indiana

1991 R&D 100 Award: Carbohydrate Conversion Process (lactic acid from food processing wastes) – Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

1990 R&D 100 Award: Inexpensive Phenol Replacements from Biomass – National Renewable Energy Laboratory

1982 R&D 100 Award: High Pressure Oxygen Blown Biomass Gasifier – National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards

2005 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award – Metabolix Inc, won the award for progress in commercializing a broad family of Natural Plastics produced from renewable resources such as corn sugar and vegetable oil, and combine the functionality of traditional plastics with biodegradability in a wide range of environments, including soil, marine, and wetlands.

Project Successes

Integrated Corn Biorefinery (ICBR)

DuPont is leading a team to develop and demonstrate an economically viable, scalable ICBR, which converts corn grain and stover to fuel ethanol and value-added chemicals. DuPont has demonstrated an economical and effective pretreatment process for corn stover and is working to develop an enzymatic saccharification process. A proprietary bacterium, Zymomonas mobilis, was developed with best-in-class performance in simultaneous conversion of high levels of glucose and xylose to ethanol. DuPont also developed detailed economic models and life cycle analysis for the process. A semi-works demonstration is being planned for 2007. Additionally, a formal partnership between Broin (a leading ethanol producer and related technology developer) and DuPont was announced in which the two companies will work towards bringing economic production of ethanol from corn stover to market.

Development of Sustainable Bio-based Products and Bioenergy

Through a grant awarded to Purdue University, the Midwest Research Consortium (comprised of Purdue University, University of Illinois, Iowa State University, Michigan State University, USDA's National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, DOE's Ames Research Center and the industrial partner Genencor) is conducting research on finding new approaches to adding value to dry grind ethanol plants. The Consortium has and continues to demonstrate new technologies and laboratory scale processes that increase ethanol yields, produce other useful co-products, and improve the quality of the distiller's grains (DG) used for animal feed. The Consortium is in discussions with several dry-grind operations to demonstrate the technologies on a pilot scale. Additionally, the Consortium holds annual stakeholder meetings to disseminate their findings to the biomass community.

National Corn Grower's Association (NCGA)

Through a grant to NCGA, Archer Daniels Midland is leading the effort to derive high-value chemicals and oils from lower value corn fiber. In the process, starch and hemicellulose are recovered as glucose and other sugars, which are then converted to ethanol. The processes and technologies have been proven on a laboratory scale and shown to be feasible on a pilot scale. Research conducted in 2006 centered on optimizing the process and evaluating the process economics at the pilot scale leading to process validation.

New Sustainable Chemistry for Adhesives, Elastomers and Foams

The Rohm & Haas Company is researching and developing a biorefinery technology platform for adhesives, elastomers and foams. The focus is on developing a biorefinery approach to produce novel bio-based polymers, which can replace petroleum-based polyurethane adhesives, elastomers and foams. Researchers developed many new materials and have made substantial progress toward developing new flexible laminating and assembly adhesive products and foam and elastomer prototypes. The flexible laminating adhesive prototype exhibits significant performance characteristics, and are anticipated to be commercially available as early as March 2007. Research conducted under this program yielded numerous additional invention disclosures and two new patent applications during 2006.

Development of Improved Chemicals and Plastics from Oilseeds

The objective of the project was to develop technology that can be applied to the production of various chemicals and plastics from seed oils. This research and development program included activities in all four key barrier areas identified in the US DOE Technology Roadmap for Plant/Crop-Based Renewable Resources. Accomplishments of the participants (The Dow Chemical Company, Castor Oil, Inc., and the USDA Western Regional Research Center) include:

Plant Science - isolation and characterization of genes and enzymes involved in seed oil metabolism in the industrial oilseed crop Ricinus communis (castor), along with the development of tools to facilitate the production of improved castor varieties through recombinant DNA technologies.
Processing - use and development of catalysts and processes for converting various seed oils to monomers for use in commercial formulations of plastics, foams, and industrial coatings.
Utilization - analysis of market opportunities for the various seed oil derivatives developed in this project including preparing a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) to assess the sustainability of several representative processes and products derived from seed oils.

Biomass Biorefinery for Production of Polymers and Fuel

The objective of this Metabolix project is to create a biorefinery for the production of energy and a new family of biobased products, polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). The project successfully demonstrated the production of four grades of biobased PHAs for use in paper coatings, cast/sheet films, blown films, and injection molding applications. The injection molding applications have included testing of cell phone casings and molded stakes. Metabolix is now working with the US Army Labs, Natick to test to ASTM D7081 marine degradable materials.

Platform Chemicals from an Oilseed Biorefinery

The objective of this Cargill Inc., project was to develop a novel platform of industrial chemicals based on novel applications of biocatalysis and chemistry that will serve as the foundation for an oilseed biorefinery or an integrated carbohydrate/oilseed biorefinery. The project studied phenomena impacting catalyst performance. Different seed oils (triglycerides and fatty acid methyl esters) with different oleic contents were screened to determine the influence of the different feedstreams and different compositions on the catalyst activities. Catalyst screens established ethenolysis activity and selectivity at higher ethylene pressure and/or lower reaction temperature, which facilitated an understanding of catalyst decomposition pathways and potential limitations in using olefin metathesis catalysts for ethenolysis. Process development tested both small and large-scale ethenolysis of soybean oil aimed at supporting product development. A preliminary cost estimate (+100%/-50%) has been done for the commercial production of caproleic acid at a large scale.