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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 1,585 records · Page 88
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Liquefaction of different corn stover fractions assisted by enzyme-biomass deconstruction

Recalcitrant properties of different sources of lignocellulosic biomass represent challenges in materials processing within a biorefinery, as well as enzyme efficient deconstruction to fermentable sugars. Limitations include lignin derived enzyme inhibitors, enzyme inhibition by hydrolysis products, and resistance to mixing due to rheological properties of lignocellulosic particulates at high solids loadings. Consequently, we examined conditions that might be used to achieve liquid slurries (i.e., liquefaction) at solids loadings of 300 g/L before the material enters the biorefinery through a pretreatment step. This work explores enzyme-assisted liquefaction in a fed-batch process using the commercial enzymes Celluclast 1.5L or Ctec-2 at 1FPU/g or 3 FPU/g of dry solids, basis. Corn stover pellets were fed into a 1 L stirred bioreactor containing enzyme solution over a 5-hour period until reaching 30% solids loading (dry wgt / vol basis). After 6, 24 and 96 hours from the start of the run, samples were taken and characterized with respect to their sugar composition, rheology, water absorption and enzyme activity. Slurries with dramatically reduced yield stresses were achieved for corn stover. Yield stresses of 178±7 Pa (3 FPU, Celluclast 1.5L) and 79±6 Pa (3FPU, Ctec-2) were measured for corn stover at 24 hours, compared to 6,000 Pa for samples without enzyme.Yield stress was 155± 29 Pa (3FPU, Ctec-2) and 257 ± 72 Pa (1 FPU, Celluclast 1.5L) for corn cobs at 24 hours.A profile based on 6, 24 and 96h of yield stress measurements and sugar conversion is presented. Enzyme activity is measured and the impact of liquefaction on an integrated processing in a biorefinery operation is discussed.

Gutierrez, Diana↗
DOE OSTI2024

CO2 Capture from Biofuels Production and Storage into the Mt Simon Sandstone

Advanced carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies offer significant potential for reducing anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, while minimizing the cost of employing these technologies. Under the Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage (ICCS) Program, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) collaborated with industry in cost-sharing arrangements to demonstrate technologies that captured CO2 emissions from industrial sources and either stored or beneficially re-use them. The technologies included in the ICCS program progressed beyond the research and development stage to a scale that can be deployed into commercial practice within the industry. The Illinois Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage (IL-ICCS) project sought to demonstrate the ability of the Mt. Simon Sandstone to accept and retain industrial-scale volumes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from an anthropogenic source for permanent geologic sequestration. The project was a collaboration of Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) Company, the Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS), Schlumberger Carbon Services (SCS), and Richland Community College (RCC), and had average annual injection rate of between 1,500 and 2,400 metric tons per day (MTPD) or 0.5 to 0.7 million metric tons (MMT) annually. The project site is in Decatur, Illinois on the property of ADM and RCC (Fig 1) and is directly adjacent to the Illinois Basin – Decatur Project (IBDP), a large scale pilot project of the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium (MGSC), which collected and injected CO2 from the ADM fuel ethanol production unit, where high purity biogenic CO2 is produced during the anaerobic fermentation of sugars to alcohol. The IL-ICCS project had an operational period of approximately six (6) years, in which 3.5 MMT of CO2 was captured, compressed, injected, and permanently stored in the Mt Simon Sandstone.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2023

Advancing Downstream Processing of Biopolymers from Methane: CRADA Final Report

Mango Materials (MM) produces a sustainable, natural, biodegradable alternative to petroleum-based plastics using methane derived from waste treatment. MM’s biopolymer is produced through a fermentation process where methane is fed to bacteria that produce an intracellular biopolymer, polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), which has material properties similar to conventional plastics such as polypropylene.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2012

Production of Jet and Diesel Fuels From Syngas

This project was a collaboration between PNNL and LanzaTech, Inc. to leverage expertise in China in the production of advanced biofuels. LanzaTech has recently developed a novel path involving CO fermentation that converts CO gas, with or without H 2 , to 2,3-butanediol (BDO). The objective of the project was to develop thermochemical processes to convert the BDO to jet and diesel fuels so that an integrated process to convert syngas to infrastructure compatible transportation fuels could be designed. The primary focus was on the production of isoparaffins (similar to synthetic paraffinic kerosene), but routes to aromatic fuels were also evaluated.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Bioprocessing Separations Consortium: Three-Year Overview - Technical Advances, Process Economics Influence, and State of the Science

The Bioprocessing Separations Consortium solves separations challenges that are unique to bioprocessing. To do this, the Consortium uses two methods: applying existing technologies to new challenges and developing new technologies that may address these unique challenges better than today’s commercial technologies. In its research and development, the Consortium leverages its three core capabilities: materials development and evaluation, process development, and analysis and computation. In its first three years, from 2016 to 2019, the Consortium addressed four critical challenges in biochemical and thermochemical processing. First, the Consortium targeted the fractionation of lignin to enable valorization of this portion of biomass that offers diverse, complex, and valuable building blocks and products. Second, Consortium researchers developed technologies to enable process intensification, which can reduce equipment needs, energy consumption, and waste generation, thereby cutting bioprocessing capital costs and rendering processes more efficient. Third, the Consortium sought to recover carbon from dilute aqueous streams that are common to bioprocessing; recovering dilute carbon can improve process efficiency and economics. Finally, Consortium researchers designed and developed new materials and catalysts to reduce targeted foulants and poisons in bioprocessing streams that can limit the lifetime of downstream catalysts or fermenting microorganisms. Table 1 lists the technologies that were examined and places them in the context of the Consortium’s capabilities, types of bioprocesses, and critical challenges in bioprocessing separations. Overall, across these projects, we have developed separations technologies for 10 bioprocesses, addressed 9 target compounds in bioprocessing, developed 10 materials, and evaluated 4 processes for cost and sustainability.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Carbon optimized production of 3-hydroxypropionic acid in the Agile BioFoundry organism Rhodosporidium toruloides

The modern global economy relies heavily on carbon-based products that are derived from petroleum, which presents sustainability, resource management, and greenhouse gas exacerbated climate change challenges. Due to these challenges, there is the need for a global industrial transition towards green and sustainable production. Microbial production of valuable chemicals from renewable biomass represents one promising route. However, high-volume low-value products such as commodity chemicals are still difficult to make profitable. One fundamental bottleneck is a waste of more than 1/3 of the feedstock carbon as CO 2 in the fermentation process. Here the project focuses on fundamentally reconfiguring the metabolism to reduce CO 2 loss in central metabolic pathways thereby also improving bioproduct yields. Here we present technologies to prevent CO 2 loss and balance reducing equivalents within the cell to enable complete conversion of glucose from renewable feedstocks into bioproducts.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2020

Microalgae Biomass Production for Utilization of CO2 and Mitigation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Microalgal cultivation processes for production of foods, feeds, fuels, fertilizers and other bioproducts and wastewater treatment are being considered for reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. Major differences between microalgae and higher plant biomass cultivation are include their potential for much higher productivities, their higher content of major (N-P-K) and minor nutrients, and the challenge of harvesting such microscopic plants. Most critical, microalgal mass cultures, unlike higher plants, currently require fertilization with concentrated sources of CO2. As practically all of the C fixed into algal biomass will be re-emitted into the atmosphere in short order, algae processes do not sequester carbon. Their potential for CO2 emissions reductions must thus be based on comparisons with current technologies for the production of competing products, such as biofuels or animal feeds, or in wastewater treatment. Further, due to economic limitations to flue gas transport (3 to 12 % CO2), as well as highly variable diurnal and seasonal CO2 utilization and limited land and water availability near most CO2 sources, only a small fraction of waste CO2 emissions will be directly utilizeable for microalgae biomass production. However, for long-distance transport, flue gas CO2 capture by chemical processes would greatly increase the costs of flue gas utilization. More concentrated, sources of CO2 from refineries, fertilizer, chemical plants, and fermentations are available, but are also very limited relative to the quantities required for commodity production. Microalgae can also be cultivated on organic wastes, which provide both nutrients (N, P, K, etc.) and organic and inorganic carbon for algal growth, reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional treatment processes. To maximize the potential for algae biomass production and CO2 utilization, direct capture of CO2 from air will be required. This could be accomplished with the algal cultivation process itself in large open-raceway ponds, through chemical and biological enhancements of CO2 transfer into algal cutures. The relative productivities, economics, greenhouse gas balances, and resource potentials of these alternative CO2 sources for large-scale production of microalgae will be reviewed.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Development of Enzyme Production Host (CRADA Final Report)

This CRADA aims to assess the effectiveness of various enzyme production hosts in efficiently expressing and producing proprietary enzymes for plastic recycling applications. The research includes screening different microbial hosts—notably Bacillus subtilis, Pichia pastoris, and E. coli—to determine their suitability for high-yield enzyme production. Additionally, the project focuses on optimizing scalable fermentation processes tailored to these hosts, with the goal of enabling efficient enzyme production at commercially viable scales.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

An Advanced Pretreatment/Anaerobic Digestion (APAD) Technology for Increased Conversion of Sewage Sludge to Bio-natural Gas in Small-scale Wastewater Plants of less than Five tons Sewage Sludge a Day

The problem today of energy production from sewage sludge at small-scale is that conventional Anaerobic Digestion (AD) as used today at Wastewater Treatment Facilities (WWTF) produces too little energy for warrant use of the biogas. It further leaves 50% or more of the waste behind after the treatment. To overcome this problem, we proposed a novel concept based on Advanced Wet Oxidation & Steam Explosion (AWOEx) of the recalcitrant parts of sewage sludge left behind after AD. We further suggest upgrading biogas to renewable natural gas (RNG) using gaseous fermentation of biogas with hydrogen added by a new methanogen. Overall, the DOE funded Advanced Pretreatment & Anaerobic digestion (APAD) project showed significant improvements over current practice. The project demonstrated that AWOEx followed by AD significantly enhanced the carbon conversion efficiency from 37% to 62%, an increase of 68%. This is far higher than the metric for the specific FOA of an increase of 50%. Besides, the project showed high efficiency of our biological conversion of biogas into RNG when using a new isolate of Methanothermobacter wolfeii resulting in a 100% increased production of a refined biogas with maximum 5% CO2. With both AWOEx pretreatment and biogas upgrading, the project showed a CCE of ca. 83%, far higher than any previous work on sewage sludge. Besides over 200% higher amount of energy in the form of RNG, the APAD concept will reduce disposal cost due to significant reduction in the concentration of final sludge product after APAD. The APAD technology can operate as a bolt-on to a conventional AD plant for improving conversion of the residual organics after AD as done in this DOE project. It can further be implemented as a stand-alone process with AWOEx followed by AD for WWTF’s currently operating without AD.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Development of Enzyme Production Host (CRADA Final Report)

This CRADA aims to assess the effectiveness of various enzyme production hosts in efficiently expressing and producing proprietary enzymes for plastic recycling applications. The research includes screening different microbial hosts—notably Bacillus subtilis, Pichia pastoris, and E. coli—to determine their suitability for high-yield enzyme production. Additionally, the project focuses on optimizing scalable fermentation processes tailored to these hosts, with the goal of enabling efficient enzyme production at commercially viable scales.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Microbial Reduction of Manganese Oxides From AMD Solids for the Biomining of Critical Minerals / Rare Earth Elements

Abandoned Coal-Mine Drainage (AMD) is a source of critical minerals (CMs) that can be biomined to increase domestic CM production for the growing tech industry while mitigating current AMD hazardous waste. Pennsylvania has ~11,000 abandoned mines, ~500 of which are currently being treated with passive remediation systems (PRS), designed to increase the pH and precipitate AMD waste onsite. Manganese (Mn) that precipitates from AMD waste can co-precipitate with CMs, and the Mn and CMs will accumulate on the PRS solids over the treatment period. This results in high Mn/CM solids that could produce a valuable leachate if resolubilized. Mn reduction and solubilization can occur through microbial driven geochemical changes such as the acidification of the environment, and it is expected that Mn resolubilization will lead to a co-resolubilization of the CMs. Investigation and stimulation of this microbial resolubilization could result in an affordable CM release process that does not require chemical additives into the environment. However the microbial mechanisms that contribute to Mn resolubilization are poorly understood. Here, we have isolated bacteria capable of resolubilizing Mn from AMD PRS. Five of the bacteria isolates have been identified as Bacillus spp. and two as Corynebacterium spp. that ferment glucose to reduce/solubilize Mn MnO2 by acidogenesis. The bacterial isolates are also capable of solubilizing Mn and CMs (Y, Zr, Sb, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, and Lu) from AMD PRS precipitated solids through their production of organic acids. Determining the microbial metabolism and genes involved in the resolubilization of manganese is crucial to optimize the biomining of CMs from AMD solid precipitants. This work addresses the growing need to develop novel CM recovery methods from domestic sources.

critical minerals↗
DOE OSTI2025

Machine Learning Enabled Process Optimization for Pharmacologically Relevant Dependent Variables: CRADA Final Report

ABPDU staff worked with Teselagen to provide expertise and perform literature searches for therapeutic carrying strains to maximize fermentation parameters for Teselagen's machine learning platform. The goal was to overcome the COVID-19 crisis and plan for a future where molecules can be detected, diagnosed, built, manufactured, and distributed within months.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Bio-Based Acetonitrile Production

The purpose of this CRADA is to produce at minimum 100 g of specified (99.8 wt%) acetonitrile from the nitrilation reaction using commercially available biologically derived acetic acid. This CRADA will also investigate the separation of pullulan from fermentation broth.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2026

One Earth Energy FEED Process Design Basis

This report establishes the process design basis for the front-end engineering design (FEED) of a carbon capture and injection facility at One Earth Energy's (OEE) ethanol production plant in Gibson City, Illinois, developed as part of the Illinois Storage Corridor CarbonSAFE Phase III project. The facility is designed to compress and dehydrate up to approximately 458,000 metric tonnes of CO 2 per year, sourced directly from OEE's ethanol fermenters, for permanent injection into a saline aquifer approximately four miles from the plant. At normal operating conditions, the system will process 1,290 metric tonnes of CO 2 per day, assuming 355 operating days per year and an ethanol production rate of 160 million gallons per year. The proposed process trains a multistage centrifugal blower with a five-stage reciprocating compressor, delivering CO 2 to the injection wellhead at up to 1,500 psig. Triethylene glycol (TEG) dehydration, applied after the fourth compression stage, reduces water content to a target of 10 lb/MMscf, well within the 30 lb/MMscf injection limit. Beyond dehydration, no additional treatment is required; trace impurities including oxygen and nitrogen will remain in the injected stream. Key design considerations include the absence of spare cooling tower capacity at the site, necessitating new cooling infrastructure, and the need for a new electrical substation to support large motor loads. The facility is designed for continuous, largely unattended operation, monitored around the clock by existing OEE operations staff. This document serves as the foundational reference for all subsequent detailed engineering activities associated with the OEE CO 2 injection facility.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2026

Developing a one-step, acid-free microbial process to recover and separate REE (CRADA Final Report)

The project aimed to develop and test microbial strains for increased bioleaching, bioconcentration, and/or bioaccumulation of REEs, and for enhanced separation of REEs from other metals and of individual REEs from one another. The team secured and tested unconventional REE feedstocks to evaluate strains/processes for bioleaching, bioconcentration, and bioaccumulation, including but not limited to wastewater, geothermal brines, red mud, and electronic waste. purified and chemically analyzed REE granules from the microbial platform; determined metabolite and biosynthetic impacts of growth with REEs and the composition of extracellular material(s) produced by platform strains; optimized the growth process with alternative carbon feedstocks to reduce the cost of the fermentation process; and scaled the process from 1 mL to 10 L.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2026

Process development and scale-up of value added molecules (CRADA Final Report)

In this project, a genetically modified Saccharomyces cerevisiae was used to produce Histamine via fermentation of dextrose. Zymergen provided a tech transfer document based on their 1 L studies, where they observed a titer of 0.9 g/L with this strain. The ABPDU staff performed two bench scale campaigns, with four 2 L reactors in each campaign, to carry out tech transfer and process optimization studies. Optimization was pursued by varying initial glucose concentration, feed initiation conditions, feed strategies, vitamin supplementation, inoculum size, etc. We chose a 2 L process condition, with 4% inoculum volume, continuous feed initiated after complete ethanol depletion, that yielded the most promising titers (2.41 g/L) for scale up to 300 L.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Metabacillus indicus EGFCL74

Chromosomal DNA of bacterium isolated from fermented cider (originally named m74) was sequenced on an Illumina NovaSeq platform 2x150bp. Raw paired end reads were trimmed and processed with BBDUK v39.01. Trimmed FASTQ files were uploaded to the KBase narrative. Within KBase, the paired-end reads were assembled using SPAdes v3.15.3 (output data file m74_SPAdes.Assembly). Completeness was evaluated with CheckM v1.0.18. The assembled genome was annotated using RAStk v1.073 (output data file m74_RAStkgenomeassembly). Comparison of the isolate genome to other available genomes was performed two ways. The InsertGenomeIntoSpeciesTree function placed the isolate in the same clade as Bacillus indicus (later renamed Metabacillus indicus). FastANI was then used to compare the average nucleotide identity of isolate (m74) to 3 available strains of Metabacillus indicus (ASM70993v2, ASM70875v2, 4-1317).

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗