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NREL's Research in Bioenergy Science Gets a Boost

From the 2007 Research Review.

NREL's ability to pursue new discoveries in basic bioenergy science received a major boost in 2007, when DOE announced funding for a new Bioenergy Science Center. NREL will play a major role in the new center.

For more than 30 years, NREL researchers have been working to increase our knowledge of the science underlying renewable energy technologies. But according to Mike Himmel, manager of the NREL Biomolecular Science Group, new gains in bioenergy science will have to come from a renewed focus on a deeper understanding of the fundamental science underlying biotechnologies. The DOE Bioenergy Science Center will provide that ability.

In August 2006, the DOE Office of Science Genomics: GTL (formerly, Genomes to Life) Program issued a solicitation for genomics-related investigations that will accelerate basic research in the development of cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels. To respond to the solicitation, NREL teamed with DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and several universities, bioenergy companies, and other institutions to propose a DOE Bioenergy Science Center. In June 2007, DOE announced that the proposal was one of three successful ones among more than 20 submitted. The center will be based at ORNL and is slated to receive $25 million per year for five years from the Genomics: GTL Program.

The new center's goal is to develop the science and technology that enables cost-effective conversion of cellulosic biomass to biofuels. To that end, the center will focus on two major research pathways, both involving recombinant genetics. For the first pathway, the center will develop plants that can be broken down more easily into their component sugars for fermentation, while the second pathway will focus on the microorganisms employed in biofuel production.

"The microorganisms we now use for biomass conversion tend to either be good at producing enzymes for breaking biomass down to sugar or good at fermenting those sugars, but not both," Himmel says.

The effort will develop new microorganisms that can do both well, so that today's multiple-step process can be carried out in a single step, called "consolidated bioprocessing." This achievement should increase process efficiency and reduce capital equipment costs.

NREL's three contributions to the work of the center will include advanced analysis and imaging, rapid analyses of large numbers of samples, and improvements in the biochemistry of cellulosomes. Cellulases are enzymes used to break cellulose down into its component sugars, and cellulosomes are complexes of cellulases that work together in the breakdown process.

"This funding will allow us to work on the entire process in a way that we have not been able to do before," Himmel says.