Energy Department Grants $2.5M for Biorefinery Waste Use, Renewable Bioproduct Study

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July 21, 2016

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by Kathleen Phillips (AgriLife Today) The U.S. Department of Energy has granted $2.5 million for a Texas A&M AgriLife Research study to find ways to use biorefinery waste to make new, marketable products.

“In the biorefinery field, we have a saying: You can make anything but money out of lignin. And yet, that is the majority of waste or what’s left over in the biorefinery plants,” said Dr. Joshua Yuan, a biotechnologist and lead scientist on the AgriLife Research project. “Until we resolve this problem, biorefinery is not going to become economically viable.”

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Yuan said about billions of dollars have been invested in the U.S. toward creating a modern biorefinery industry, and progress has been made in terms of plants such as switchgrass, sorghum, energy cane and other grass-type plants to produce fuel.

But all of those plants leave lignin, the stiff, almost woody cell wall material, after the fuel is extracted. Rather than try to burn it or otherwise dispose of it leaving an impact on the environment, he said, biorefineries prefer using the byproduct in additional products, which would help their overall bottom line.

This new project will use the biorefinery waste to develop plastic materials that could then be used to make other products, which in turn would be recyclable.

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Yuan said his team will work with an engineered microorganism that is able to convert lignin to plastic while also concentrating on maximizing the amount of plastic that can be made from the waste.

Two commercial partners and several biorefinery companies are collaborating with Yuan’s team, which includes researchers with the University of Tennessee and Washington State University. READ MORE

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