SIUE Chemistry Professor to Contribute on $1.6M DOE Funded Project
Through a project led by The Ohio State University College of Engineering, Jie Dong, PhD, an assistant professor at the Department of Chemistry at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and director of fermentation at the NCERC at SIUE, is part of a team of researchers who received a $1.6 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to produced advanced biofuel. The funding will be used to develop engineered microbial consortia for the production of biobutanol, an advanced and efficient biofuel, from renewable biomass with higher product yields and zero carbon dioxide emissions.
“We are excited about Dr. Dong’s future work with this team of collaborators to produce biobutanol utilizing a novel method with negative or net-zero carbon emissions,” said NCERC Executive Director John Caupert. “NCERC has played an important role in biobutanol research for many years through work with our clients in the private sector, and I’m happy to see this research continue with researchers from top engineering universities.”
Dong’s collaborators include Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Professor Shang-Tian Yang, the project’s principal investigator, and Ting Lu, PhD, from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The project team will develop a novel fermentation process by combining three bacterial species and an electrochemically-reduced formate to maximize carbon conversion and butanol production with zero or negative carbon dioxide emissions. Butanol is generally used as an industrial solvent, but can also be blended with gasoline and used in engines of light-duty vehicles. Biobutanol is produced from fermentation of the same feedstocks as ethanol – corn, sugar beets and other types of biomass.
“Biofuel is a powerful tool in the clean energy toolkit that has immense potential to power our ships and airlines with zero carbon emissions,” said Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “DOE is investing in research to reduce emissions and maximize the availability of efficient biofuel as we strive to reach President Biden’s net-zero carbon goals.”
The NCERC at SIUE is a nationally recognized research center dedicated to the development and commercialization of biofuels, specialty chemicals and other renewable compounds. The Center’s fully functional dry grind pilot plant and laboratories are equipped with advanced biofuels capabilities including corn fractionation, pretreatment, and a fermentation suite with 5, 30, 150 and 1500L scale-up. Facilities are staffed by industry veterans with more than 100 years of collective experience in fermentation and biofuels production. This knowledgeable team has the flexibility and expertise to design and carry out projects in any region of the advanced biofuels or specialty chemicals space. For more information, contact Jackie Pohlman at jpohlman@ethanolresearch.com or visit ethanolresearch.com.
