| PI Contribution |
Collaboration with NREL: NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy at the forefront of biomass bioconversion. Their protocols, life cycle and techno-economic models are the industrial and academic standards in the field of biofuel processing. Their processes and models are derived from research at commercially relevant scales. There is no one UK institution that the facilities, resources or expertise to address relevant issues in the area of bioenergy / biorefining. This partnership offers a unique opportunity to collaborate with a world class research facility.
The main scientific objectives:
1. Assessing methodologies to examine the techno-economic feasibility of producing a range of biofuels and platform/speciality chemicals as part of an integrated biorefinery.
2. To discuss integration of specific areas of UK expertise (e.g. biomass pre-treatment and biotransformation, sub/ supercritical carbon dioxide extraction and life cycle assessment) with NREL's core skills to address the BBSRC Grand Challenges, including the sustainable production of bioenergy and chemicals.
3. To discuss the applicability of NREL's biorefinery modelling software 'BIOREFINE II' established
to evaluate corn ethanol, to UK feedstock systems and to identify strategies to expand the range of product streams that could be generated from a biorefinery, including speciality (high value, low volume) chemicals.
4. To translate these discussions into research projects and seek funding from a range of sources.
On-going partnership: Summary of previous contacts or links with proposed partners:
1. NREL hosted a Joint US-UK Biofuels Sustainability Workshop in December 2010, which both Bangor and Aberystwyth Universities attended. Delegates at the event have maintained contact since this event with a view to pursuing a joint collaboration.
2. Following the award of an ISIS grant in 2012, four scientists from Bangor and Aberystwyth Universities visited NREL in April 2012. The visit was very successful and identified a number of areas for collaboration, including:
i. Techno-economic assessment of obtaining multiple products from feedstocks
ii. The application of novel biomass pre-treatments and extraction processes and their implications for a
biorefinery.
iii. Processing of alternative feedstocks (e.g. miscanthus and switchgrass)
Following the visit in April 2012, a specific project focused on the supercritical carbon dioxide extraction of a range of biomass feedstocks was identified. Funding for this project is being actively pursued, through a Welsh Government scheme and collaborators at NREL have proposed making a bid to access internal NREL funding from existing Dept of Energy strategic funding programmes, as a source of match funding for any UK grant money secured. The proposed US partnering award will investigate a more extensive range of areas for potential collaboration between the two UK Universities and NREL.
Action Plan:
Prior to travel, potential funding opportunities in the relevant areas will be identified. The proposed partnering award would fund three, five day visits to NREL. Initially, four UK scientists, experts in various disciplines (e.g. biomass pre-treatment, land use and crop production, fractionation and extraction of biomass, composites and LCA) will go to NREL for discussions and to develop a strategy to drive previously established collaborations forward and to target funding opportunities. This will be followed up by a return visit after six months and a final visit in the second year. Six researchers from NREL will visit the UK over the two years. The UK contingent will include two early career scientists, Trish Toop and Campbell Skinner, with expertise in LCA. The US partnering award will enable the participants to build on current interactions by facilitating group discussions to formulate a roadmap for driving collaborative research forward. This will include a focus on developing methodology for determining the techno feasibility of biorefining processes. This funding will also facilitate joint networking events and attendance at workshops focused on key areas of joint research activity, hosted by NREL, and visits to NREL facilities (e.g. Integrated Biorefinery Research Facility and the Thermochemical Users Facility) and satellite institutions such as the Colorado School of Mines, which is also located in Golden. This institution, along with NREL, is a partner in the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboration (http://www.coloradocollaboratory.org), which is another network where there is the potential to build collaborative links with US researchers. The partnering award funding will allow 10 staff from Bangor and Aberystwyth Universities to travel to NREL and also facilitate travel to the UK by 6 NREL researchers, in order to visit the two partner Universities.
Expertise of the different organisations:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden Colorado- NREL is one of the world's leading organisations dedicated to the research, development, commercialization and deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies and has a major programme of research investigating the conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals. It has over twenty years experience in the use of techno-economic analysis to guide research and development of lignocellulosic biofuels. It has a dedicated Integrated Biorefinery Research Facility which is optimising all aspects of the conversion of corn stover and other feedstocks to a range of fuels, including cellulosic bioethanol. This includes physical and chemical pre-processing, enzymic hydrolysis and fermentation. NREL has developed process simulations models around these different conversion steps, which has lead to BIOREFINE II. This model allows researchers to evaluate the economics of biofuel production by varying the different inputs to the process. This model has been invaluable to both academics and industrial end-users as providing a reference for their specific applications.
The BioComposites Centre (BC), Bangor University-BC has been at the forefront of research, development and the commercial application of bio-based alternatives to synthetic materials since 1989. BC's services encompass all stages of the evaluation, research, product development, product trial and manufacturing process. Reflecting a client base drawn largely, but by no means exclusively, from the resins coatings and plastics, fine chemicals, composites and forest products industries, BC is structured into three service groups offering different expertise: BC Polymers, BC Chemistry and BC Materials. BC also operates a specialist demonstration unit located at Mona, Anglesey, focusing on pilot scale prototyping of various technologies, including plant fibres in a range of composite material applications, blending and extrusion of biopolymers and large scale extraction of bioactive molecules from plant material.
IBERS, Aberystwyth University- IBERS has over 300 research, teaching and support staff conducting basic, strategic and applied research in biology from the level of genes and other molecules to the impact of climate change and bio-energy on sustainable agriculture and land use. IBERS harnesses unique interdisciplinary scientific expertise within the institute with collaborating organisations from around the world to deliver holistic solutions to the global grand challenges which map onto strategic areas identified by the BBSRC: Living with climate change, Renewable energy, Global food and water security, Animal and plant diseases. IBERS is a world renowned centre of plant breeding and holds extensive collections of perennial grasses including Miscanthus. Programmes at IBERS are involved in developing perennial grasses as feedstocks for use in biorefining and bioenergy production through improvements to composition, yield and process ability. IBERS undertake substantial research (from bench to pilot-scale) in the areas of bioenergy and biorefining along the entire pipeline from feedstock to product, including agronomy, biomass storage, pre-processing, processing and production of both fine and bulk chemicals.
Both Bangor and Aberystwyth Universities are currently partners in a major UK biorefinery initiative called BEACON (www.beacon.org), which is focused on building a sustainable bio economy in Wales. BEACON is investigating the production of a range of fuels, platform / speciality chemicals and composite materials from different feedstocks, including ryegrass, miscanthus and oats. The facility has pilot scale capability for the processing of a range of feedstocks, for bioconversion and for the isolation of products.
Statement of added value. Indicate the benefit of the proposed collaboration to UK science and in particular, the relevance to your current BBSRC funding:
Building collaborative links between the UK and leading US Department of Energy institutions such as NREL will benefit UK science through a sharing of expertise in order to resolve common issues of interest around sustainable sources of fuels and chemicals from biomass. The proposed partners in this collaboration have contrasting, but complimentary areas of expertise which if pooled have the potential to benefit both the UK and US and guide future research themes. The proposed partnership clearly aligns with BBSRC strategic priorities. The BBSRC Delivery Plan (2011-2015) highlights a number of themes which the proposed collaboration with NREL will have a positive impact on:
i. Maintaining excellence in bioscience- sharing best practice and new innovations in the area of biomass pre-treatment and downstream conversion through a series of multidisciplinary collaborative R&D projects with NREL will help ensure that the UK stays internationally competitive. The aim of the proposed partnering award is to highlight key areas for future collaboration in these commercially important areas of research.
ii. Powering economic recovery and growth in the new green bioeconomy- the US partnering award will identify key areas for research within biorefining that will support knowledge exchange and translation of bioscience into practical applications that will benefit the UK economy e.g. optimisation of biofuels production using a variety of feedstocks and production of new high value plant extracts
iii. Meeting the UK and global bioscience 'grand challenges'- identifying joint areas for collaborative projects in the area of biorefining will address one of these challenges; the production of sustainable bioenergy, chemicals and renewable materials form bioscience. Food security is another major issue and understanding the issues and synergies around land management and crop production for both biorefining and food applications is an important research area for both NREL and the Universities in Wales. From a Welsh perspective, this partnership will help address one of the three priority areas for the Welsh government; 'low carbon, energy and environment'.
Relevance to current BBSRC funding:
Aberystwyth and Bangor Universities are involved in a number of research projects in the areas of bioenergy and biorefining. Those funded through the BBSRC include:
1. BB/K500926/1: (2012-2016) Characterisation of the regulatory networks controlling yield and conversion efficiencies in biorefining feedstocks.
2. BB/G016216/1 (2011-2014) The BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre (BSBEC): Perennial Bioenergy Crops Programme
3. BBS/E/W/00003134 (2012-2017) Energy Grasses and Biorefining (ISPG)
4. BB/G016097/1 (2009-2012) Conversion of high sugar grasses to alcohol based transport fuel
5. BB/I005390/1: (2010-2013) Isolation, fractionation and modification of fructans from rye-grass to produce novel biosurfactants and polymers as part of a rye-grass biorefinery
6. BB/1532953/1 (2011- 2012)The commercial exploitation of novel prebiotics from perennial grasses
These projects are based on optimisation and development of feedstock, process and product streams. Commercial up-take of these projects requires continual development of process, techno-economic and Life Cycle Assessment models. Complex models are required to identify commercially and environmentally sustainable product chains. These projects have a number of core science themes which form the basis of these projects and establishing a strategic link with NREL will add value to the following:
i. Integrative bioprocessing-The shared US/UK issues around optimised enzymic and microbial treatment of biomass to optimise biofuels would hopefully form part of a long term collaboration between the three organisations.
ii. Enhancing product value-By developing a complex model which would evaluate the isolation of new fine/ speciality chemicals from biomass, using green solvents such as CO2, alongside biofuels production, would provide a powerful tool for guiding future research themes in this area, both from a UK and US perspective. Maximising value throughout the biomass supply chain is central developing a sustainable model for how future integrated biorefineries will operate. Identifying new products that can be isolated from biomass, for a range of industrial applications including the polymers, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals and personal healthcare sectors is part of the solution.
UK Match funding for the US Partnering Awards
Both Bangor and Aberystwyth University are in the process of applying for between £5,000-10,000 of additional travel match funding through the Strategic Insight Programme (SIP). The SIP is a collaborative, pan-Wales programme, funded by HEFCW, which will fund a number of activities, including encouraging HEIs to establish strategic links with external organisations. The programme facilitates this by providing seed funding for short-term placements aimed at developing new cross-sector relationships and encouraging development of strategically beneficial collaborative projects. A maximum of four SIP proposals for individual, named researchers at both Bangor and Aberystwyth Universities are currently being developed, each with an approximate value of £2,500.
Contribution from University; Aberystwyth University supports this collaboration and will provide £1500 towards the travel costs of the project and will offer practical assistance in the area of commercialisation of future outcomes. |
| Collaborator Contribution |
Two Life Cycle Assessment Researchers (Campbell Skinner- Bangor University and Trish Toop- Aberystwyth University) were hosted by Danny Inman (Senior Research Scientist, Strategic Energy Analysis Centre, NREL) for a two week visit in 2013.The purpose of the placement was to gain a deeper understanding of how the teams go about developing their models; the systems they use and their areas of current scientific interest. In particular, the placement offered an opportunity to develop further links between the two Welsh institutions and NREL, and to look for opportunities for future collaborative work between them. The visit focused on the development of techno-economic and environmental models realting to land use change and in particular (BioLUC). The biomass and land use change model (BioLUC) currently under development at NREL uses a systems dynamics approach to examine key feedback processes involved in driving land use change in response to (among other things) biofuels expansion. It seeks to address one of the key uncertainties in the environmental modelling of biofuels development, namely that of indirect land use change, and allow insights into how seemingly disparate policies can interplay to affect land use change at an international level. Modelled feedbacks include supply and demand for biofuels, food, feed and other crop products, population dynamics, international development, yield factors and changing dietary preferences (in particular, demand for meat) at an international level. The model incorporates nineteen regional modules to model global responses to regional and inter-regional change. The BioLUC project was launched in 2009 and is intended to be ready for release in September 2013 on an open-access basis. The team's emphasis is on ease of use and transparency of assumptions so that the model can be taken up and used / built upon by the wider research community. The model uses Stella systems dynamics software. Version-control and document release is managed through a repository on the GitHub platform, to which we have been given access. At the time of the placement the team was beginning a phase of pre-release testing and we were involved in terms of providing usability feedback, testing scenarios and identifying possible bugs.It is anticipated that once released there will be opportunities for examination of biofuels scenarios either at the EU27 level or (with significant technical input) in terms of developing a UK-based module using regionally-specific data. The team estimates this latter option would amount to approximately 100 hours 'mechanical' work, plus data search and input time. Either course of action should offer good potential for publication of results given the model's uniqueness. Both UK scientists were able to contribute to the further development of the BioLUC model and received recongnition for their input, following release of a later version in 2014 (https://github.com/NREL/bioluc). The UK partners hosted a visit by NREL reserachers to both Welsh University partners in late 2014. |