Bioproducts are biochemicals, proteins, or polymer building blocks derived from the bioprocessing of renewable resources. Produced in large volumes, bioproducts form the building blocks for renewable fuels, biodegradable plastics, food additives, and therapeutic compounds. The goals of the research are to understand the molecular basis of the biology and biochemistry of living organisms that transform renewable resources and agricultural commodities to bioproducts, and then apply Bioprocess Engineering to achieve manufacturing systems that carry out such transformations in a cost-effective manner.

Background. Plants harvest the energy of the sun, CO2 from the air, and hydrogen from water in forms that can be stored – oil in soybeans, starch in corn, cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin in agricultural residues. When plant material is processed by biological means, a wide range of useful biomolecules may be derived through sustainable and environmentally friendly manufacturing methods. The processing of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and starch components to biofuels and bioproducts presents many challenges since high yield at low costs are prerequisites for success.

Research Activities. The Laboratory's research addresses the development of genetically engineered yeasts that utilize hexose and pentose molecules, catalytic organic molecules that mimic the specificity of enzymes, and bioprocessing conditions that minimize manufacturing cost and maximize reactivity of biomass materials. Current emphasis is on ethanol and generation of plant-derived or fermentation-derived nutritional animal feed supplements and energy sources. Research has been initiated on generating and utilizing hydrogen from biological sources.

The Laboratory's research programs address preprocessing the biomass into a reactive form, carrying out catalyst development to hydrolyze the polymer to sugars, and performing molecular biology in yeast to transform the sugars to ethanol. Manipulating the macroscopic structure of plant biomass in order to make the nanostructure of the cellulose more accessible and susceptible to depolymerization, i.e., hydrolysis, involves understanding the molecular biology of plant cell walls as well as physical structures of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Research on bioprocesses for generating hydrogen from plant matter is building upon this knowledge base.

Hydrolysis requires enzymes that cost less. Our laboratory utilizes known structure/function relationships of cellulases, hemicellulases, and amylases in order to design biodegradable organic molecules which exhibit the selectivity of enzymes. Solid acid catalysts and soluble diacid molecules are being studied in this context.

Once the sugars are formed, fermentation of both glucose and xylose is the goal. While native (wild-type) yeasts ferment glucose, they are not able to convert xylose to ethanol. Fundamental research on yeast is addressing genetic transformations that enable both glucose and xylose to be fermented to ethanol. The resulting methods form a basis for future research on genetic modification of yeast to form other bioproducts.

These research thrusts are directed to improving the productivity of ethanol from biomass, at the same time making significant impacts on new technologies to generate other bioproducts. Nascent research on microbial hydrogen production adds capability to address the future hydrogen economy to the Laboratory's portfolio of projects directed to carbon-based bioproducts while catalyzing interactions with extra-mural partners in discovery, learning and engagement. Our graduate research programs address fundamental science and engineering issues that will add to a portfolio of technologies and an underlying knowledge base required to achieve efficient and clean conversion of plant material to bioproducts.

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