PURDUE UNIVERSITY
Grant: $15,074,136 - Office of Science - Aug. 1, 2009
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Award Description: Purdue University, in partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the University of Tennessee, and the Argonne National Laboratory, offers comprehensive expertise for a world-leading Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) that will make transformational discoveries in bioenergy science. The Center for Direct Catalytic Conversion of Biomass to Biofuels (C3Bio) vision is to develop technologies that maximize the energy and carbon efficiencies of biofuel production by the rational and synergistic design of both physical and chemical conversion processes and the biomass itself. We have three research goals: 1. Apply new catalytic transformations to biomimetic structures and lignocellulosic biomass variants, and identify highly efficient process pathways. 2. Achieve an atomic-to-macromolecular scale understanding of the interactions of catalysts with the chemical and physical structures of lignocellulosic biomass. 3. Engineer tailored biomass for highly efficient, direct catalytic conversion to liquid fuels and value-added products. The long-range impact of success in our research mission will be to more than double the carbon captured into fuel from biomass over existing technologies, and expand the product range beyond ethanol to alkanes and new energy-rich aromatic liquid fuels and other value-added products that retain the current liquid fuel infrastructure. The C3Bio collaborative effort will realize the fundamental processes of making and breaking covalent and other bonds in biological materials and afford us control of material properties at the molecular scale. Our proposed research plan will reveal new ways to design lignocellulosic biomass tailored for its end-use in direct chemical catalytic pathways. To reach this energy frontier, we will integrate advances in nanotechnology, chemical engineering, materials science, molecular biology and high-resolution instrumentation to relate the molecular and nanoscale properties of biomass materials to their macroscopic behavior in catalytic bioprocessing. Our commitment to education and outreach will provide undergraduate and graduate training in bioenergy systems and advanced analytical tools to help develop a future bioenergy workforce, create platforms for public education on alternative energy at local, state, and national levels, and engage corporate partners for new technology deployment.
Project Description: A technician, five graduate students, and two post-docs have been recruited to the C3Bio project and additional recruitment for personnel, including a Managing Director, is underway. We have purchased a high-performance liquid chromatography system from Dionex, and it has been delivered and installed in interdisciplinary lab space allocated in Bindley Bioscience Center in Discovery Park. A web site is in development together with a Purdue C3Bio hub that will provide the ability to share data and tools among the four partner institutions. A steering committee has been established and is meeting regularly, as are the Purdue-based C3Bio faculty.
Infrastructure Description: N/A
Jobs Summary: This grant allowed for the creation/retention of the following positions: Director of Operations (26 Hours), Associate Professor of Biological Science (39 Hours), Professor of Plant Pathology (54.6 Hours), Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry (17.33 Hours), Graduate Research Assistant (260 Hours), Associate Professor of Ag & Bio Engineering (26 Hours), and Associate Professor of Agronomy (78 Hours). (Total jobs reported: 1)
Project Status: Less Than 50% Completed
This award's data was last updated on Aug. 1, 2009. Help expand these official descriptions using the wiki below.
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