Bioenergy applied science facilities: Multi-institution partnerships, plans, and enabling science features

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1 Bioenergy applied science facilities: Multi-institution partnerships, plans, and enabling science features Mara Beth Bryan, Ph.D. Research Operations Manager Energy Biosciences Institute, UC-Berkeley

2 Outline Intro to the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) The Energy Biosciences Building Research highlights

3 About EBI: Our Mission Partnership between UCB, UIUC, LBNL, and BP BP committed $500M over 10 years Motivations Climate change Security of energy supply Increasing energy demands Renewable Fuel Standard (Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007) 16 billion gallons/year by 2022 from cellulosics Mission Apply biological knowledge to the energy sector Find total system solutions to biofuels that are cost effective and sustainable Educate scientists and engineers across the relevant disciplines

4 Sustainability

5 About EBI: Why Biofuels? nuclear 14Mboe/d wind, solar 5Mboe/d biomass 23Mboe/d power generation 76Mboe/d industry 33Mboe/d coal 43Mboe/d gas 38Mboe/d buildings 40Mboe/d oil 63Mboe/d transportation 37Mboe/d

6 About EBI: Our Structure

7 About EBI: Our Structure Governance Board UCB/UIUC/LBNL - 4 representatives BP - 4 representatives Scientific Advisory Board Executive Committee Strategic Science Advisors EBI (UCB) Director (Chris Somerville) EBI (BP) Assoc. Director (Paul Willems) B P Research Leaders EBI (UIUC) Deputy Director (Isaac Cann) Energy Biosciences Institute Open Research Programs BP R&T Proprietary Research Programs

8 About EBI: The Partnership with BP BP personnel co-located and interact with researchers EBI personnel are university employees IP stays with the university Benefits for both sides

9 EBI: Research Operations Centrally managed labs Instrumentation belongs to EBI, not research groups Shared supplies and facilities Connections

10 Ethanol Production Schemes Cellulose Process Corn Process Sugar Cane Process Sugar Cane Sugar Fermentation Distillation Drying Ethanol Corn Kernels Starch Conversion (Cook or Enzymatic Hydrolysis) Cellulose Cellulose Pretreatment Cellulose Conversion Hydrolysis Miscanthus Switchgrass Forest Residues Ag Residues Wood Chips Slide Courtesy of Bruce Dale

11 SCIENCE / / RESEARCH: The Facility Research Needs Breeding Propagation Plant biologists = growth chambers Pretreatment Chemists = lots of hoods and gasses field = future flexibility Quickly changing Fossil fuel bioprocessing Pest & Pathogen Enzymes Agronomy Bioprospecting Metabolic Engineering Harvest Transport Storage Sustainability Environmental impact Modeling Feedstock supply Core facilities = lots of instruments Catalysis Imaging Analytical chemistry Process Engineering Modeling Precursors Systems Biology Synthetic Genomics Microbiology Fermentation Catalysis Modeling Fuels Petroleum microbiology Passionate researchers = creature comforts Socioeconomics, law & policy Fermentation instrumentation Chris Somerville Co-located Shared Facilities and Interaction Space!!!

12 Timeline 2007 Initial plan 2009 site change Winter Old building torn down Fall 2010 Site prep and foundation Jan 2011 Steel structure starts August-September 2012 Move in

13 Size: 115,000sf Height: 6-stories Project Value: $133M ($100M construction) Schedule: 28 months construction Designers: SmithGroupJJR / Gayner Engineers / Research Facility Design

14 EBB: Exterior

15 EBB: Interior Floorplans

16 EBB: Laboratories (Biology)

17 EBB: Laboratories (Chemistry)

18 EBB: Laboratories (Core Utilities)

19 EBB: Common spaces and collaborations

20 Current industrial yeast are unable to utilize xylose Second unit process

21 Conversion of xylose to ethanol in engineered strains is slow 21 Conversion of xylose to ethanol in engineered strains is slow Jin et al, UIUC

22 Use of cellobiose instead of glucose allows simultaneous conversion of xylose to ethanol Ha et. al, 2010 (PNAS).

23 ABE Fermentation using corn Horses pulling carts full of corn to ABE plant Commercial solvents corporation in Terre Haute, Indiana (1940s) Acetone, Butanol, Ethanol (ABE) Process First Industrial ABE Fermentation was Commercialized (1918) Acetone production needed for Cordite production-an explosive (WW II) Discontinued in U.S. in 1960s due competition with the petrochemical industry

24 A Process Scheme for Production of ABE-Diesel Anbarasan, Baer et al, Nature doi: /nature11594 (2012)

25 Publications/ Disclosures

26 Tradeline 3 Biofuels done the right way can solve one of the world s major problems. Industry-academic partnerships can be hugely beneficial to all involved. Building design directly affects research and collaborations.

27 Acknowledgements EBB: Capital Projects (Sally McGarrahan), Smith Group, Rudolf and Sletten, Harry Stark EBI: Chris Somerville, Caroline Taylor, Heather Youngs BP