Category: Research

Digital Journal reported on a $4 million U.S. Department of Energy grant to LanzaTech to design and plan a demonstration-scale facility using industrial off gases to produce 3M gallons/year of low carbon jet and diesel fuels. Michigan Tech’s Sustainable Futures Institute will help them evaluate the environmental footprint of the fuel produced.

LanzaTech Awarded $4M from DOE for Low Carbon Jet & Diesel Demonstration Facility

CHICAGO, IL–(Marketwired – Dec 30, 2016) – Carbon recycling company, LanzaTech, has been selected by the Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) to receive a $4M award to design and plan a demonstration-scale facility using industrial off gases to produce 3M gallons/year of low carbon jet and diesel fuels.

Professor David Shonnard, Director, Sustainable Futures Institute, Michigan Technological University:

The Michigan Tech Sustainable Futures Institute is excited to continue our relationship with LanzaTech, helping them innovate and develop products that meet environmental goals in addition to technical and economic targets.

Read more at Digital Journal.

Wen Zhou (ChE/SFI) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $310,716 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation.

David Shonnard (ChE) is the Co-PI on the project “SusChEM: Integrated Studies on Interactions between Lignocellulosic Fine Structure and Hydrolytic Enzymes toward Efficient Hydrolysis.” This is a three-year project.

From Tech Today.

A new theory about virus surfaces—that they’re hydrophobic—has opened up new processes to improve vaccine production, potentially making them more affordable around the world.

Virus Flocculation

Virus hydrophobicity is the focus of research by Caryn Heldt, an associate professor of chemical engineering, who won a National Science Foundation (NSF) Early Career Award grant. Heldt’s CAREER Award will help her explore a process that causes viruses to clump, making them easier to remove.

Our focus for purification is for improved vaccine manufacturing. Reducing cost could increase adaption around the world.

Read more and watch the video at Unscripted, by Allison Mills.

David Shonnard (ChE/Robbins Chair, director of the Sustainable Futures Institute) will participate in a workshop to be held in Washington, DC at the Keck Center of the National Academies from May 26 to May 27.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) requests the assistance of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in convening a two day meeting of experts who are knowledgeable about the commercial viability of advanced biofuels in the short-, medium- and long-term.

Read more at Tech Today.

by David Shonnard

About 40 biofuel and bioenergy researchers from many countries in the Pan American region (from Argentina to Canada) will attend a workshop hosted by the Sustainable Futures Institute at Michigan Tech tomorrow through Friday.

The goals of the workshop are to develop a research roadmap report (RRR) with diverse international perspectives and to recommend priority areas for future research. The RRR will be disseminated to funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy and other federal research sponsors in the United States and their equivalents in other Pan American countries, as well as to industry and the general public.

This is the final workshop in the NSF-funded project “RCN-SEES: A Research Coordination Network on Pan American Biofuel and Bioenergy Sustainability”. The project is directed by David Shonnard (ChE) and with co-investigators Barry Solomon (SS), Kathy Halvorsen (SS), Sam Sweitz (SS) and Robert Handler (SF I).

Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE)

Project efforts focus on woody bioenergy for heat and power, switchgrass used for cellulosic ethanol, and palm and jatropha oil for biodiesel in six case studies across Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Uruguay, Argentina, and the United States (US). This allows us to examine diverse socio-ecological systems in countries experiencing rapid bioenergy development. These systems’ complexity enables the development of new approaches to studying and assessing sustainability as it relates to dynamic systems in general, while focusing on bioenergy in particular.

More articles:

Bioenergy Across the Americas

ECNmag, an online energy magazine, reported on an international conference hosted by Michigan Tech, where 80 researchers from six countries including the US, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay met to discuss bioenergy.

With a new CAREER Award, Caryn Heldt will be able to focus more on the chemistry of virus surfaces to help develop better removal techniques for purifying water and vaccines.

Read More