Ed Wolfrum leads the Analytical Sciences Group within the Renewable Resources and Enabling Sciences Center at NREL. This group is a team of analytical scientists and analytical chemistry technicians that provides analytical chemistry support to multiple internal and external clients and develops new analytical methods for biomass characterization. The group is best known for its standardized biomass analysis methods, known as Laboratory Analytical Procedures, or LAPs. The group regularly interacts with external stakeholders including ASTM International, National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and multiple commercial collaborators.

Ed currently serves as Principal Investigator of the Feedstock Conversion Interface Consortium (FCIC). The FCIC is a collaborative effort of the U.S. Department of Energy's Bioenergy Technologies Office, which includes interdisciplinary researchers from nine national laboratories to quantify, understand, and manage variability in biomass from the field through downstream conversion and to understand how feedstock composition, structure, and behavior impacts overall system performance. As the overall scientific and technical leader of the FCIC, he works with all FCIC members to ensure superior performance and alignment of all FCIC work with the vision of the FCIC.

Research Interests

Ed’s research interests include understanding how low-cost, rapid, non-destructive spectroscopic techniques combined with multivariate statistical analysis can be used for rapid biomass characterization. His key technical competencies include biomass compositional analysis using both conventional and rapid analysis methods, low-temperature biomass conversion, experimental design and exploratory data analysis, and multivariate statistics.

Education

Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, North Carolina State University

B.S., Chemical Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Featured Work

A Performance Comparison of Low-Cost Near-Infrared (NIR) Spectrometers to a Conventional Laboratory Spectrometer for Rapid Biomass Compositional Analysis, Bioenergy Research (2020)

Throughput, Reliability, and Yields of a Pilot-Scale Conversion Process for Production of Fermentable Sugars from Lignocellulosic Biomass: A Study on Feedstock Ash and Moisture, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (2020)

Unified Field Studies of the Algae Testbed Public-Private Partnership as the Benchmark for Algae Agronomics, Nature Scientific Data (2018)

High Throughput Screening Technologies in Biomass Characterization, Frontiers in Energy Research (2018)

Evaluation of Fifteen Cultivars of Cool-Season Perennial Grasses as Biofuel Feedstocks Using NIR/PLS, Agronomy Journal (2017)

Assessing Pretreatment Reactor Scaling Through Empirical Analysis, Biotechnology for Biofuels (2016)

Metal Oxide Sensor Arrays for the Detection, Differentiation, and Quantification of Volatile Organic Compounds at Sub-Parts-Per-Million Concentration Levels, Sensors & Actuators B: Chemical (2016)

Compositional Analysis of Biomass Reference Materials: Results from an Interlaboratory Study, Bioenergy Research (2016)

Rapid Analysis of Composition and Reactivity in Cellulosic Biomass Feedstocks with Near-Infrared Spectroscopy, Biotechnology for Biofuels (2015)

Correlating Detergent Fiber Analysis and Dietary Fiber Analysis Data for Corn Stover, Cellulose (2009)