Disruptive Technology for Carbon Negative Commodity Biochemicals

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Program:
ECOSynBio
Award:
$2,672,672
Location:
Stanford, California
Status:
ACTIVE
Project Term:
09/01/2021 - 02/29/2024

Technology Description:

Stanford University is developing a commercially attractive, scalable, carbon-negative technology for producing commodity biochemicals. Glucose, carbon dioxide (CO2), and electricity will provide the required atoms and energy for carbon-negative, energy-positive production. Instead of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, this new approach will enable use of atmospheric CO2 and glucose obtained from cornstarch to produce renewable fuels and chemicals. The benchmark product will be succinic acid, an established bioproduct with applications in alkyd resins, plasticizers, metal treatment chemicals, and coatings with significant market expansion potential. The technology can easily be adapted to produce a broad range of other biochemical products as well. The new technology introduces a biosynthesis platform that increases process yield, conversion rate, and energy efficiency to encourage investment in distributed production facilities located in rural communities.

Potential Impact:

The application of biology to sustainable uses of waste carbon resources for the generation of energy, intermediates, and final products---i.e., supplanting the “bioeconomy”—provides economic, environmental, social, and national security benefits and offers a promising means of carbon management.

Security:

If successful, the new technologies are expected to catalyze new conversion platforms for biofuels and other high-volume bioproducts that are capable of promoting U.S. energy security by increasing recoverable product from the same mass of feedstock through the avoidance of wasting carbon in the form of CO2.

Environment:

This program funds cutting-edge technologies to de-risk the engineering of carbon optimized bioconversion pathways capable of generating valuable bioproducts such as sustainable aviation fuel without emission of CO2 as a waste product.

Economy:

The technologies funded by this program can increase the potential bioproduct output by more than 40% without requiring another square inch of land or pound of feedstock, while catalyzing the next generation of carbon optimized bio-based manufacturing.

Contact

ARPA-E Program Director:
Dr. Steven Singer
Project Contact:
Prof. James Swartz
Press and General Inquiries Email:
ARPA-E-Comms@hq.doe.gov
Project Contact Email:
jswartz@stanford.edu

Partners

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
BioChemInsights

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Release Date:
09/10/2020