29 September 2009

Bridging the gap at biorenewable chemical research

These days, innovation is just around the corner, but it can only occur if the creators are able to communicate.

Take a look at Brent Shanks. He studies chemical catalysts in Iowa State University’s Sweeney Hall, and just a few buildings to the north, Basil Nikolau studies biological catalysts. The two researchers used to talk twice a year about the science of using different kinds of catalysts to accelerate chemical reactions, and that was just about it. Good conversations, but no daily interaction.

That has now changed with the NSF Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals based at Iowa State. The two are meeting over 20 times a year to talk catalysis. The goal of the center is to transform the ways companies can produce industrial chemicals. Rather than an industry based on petroleum, center researchers want to see an industry that focuses on biorenewable resources.

The center’s core mission is to find ways to integrate biological and chemical catalysts to produce biorenewable chemicals. Advances could move the $400 billion U.S. industrial chemical industry toward more sustainable feedstocks and technologies.

Shanks, the director of the Center for Biorenewable Chemicals and professor of chemical and biological engineering, and Nikolau, the center’s deputy director and the Frances M. Craig Professor in the departments of biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology and food science and human nutrition, said the center has made good progress in its first year.

It has passed an NSF evaluation. It has assembled a team of 24 researchers from nine academic institutions who are working with 70 graduate students and post-doctoral researchers and more than 20 undergraduate students. It is working with 14 high school and middle school teachers.

Shanks said a highlight of the center’s work so far has been watching all of that come together: “I can now see the pieces taking shape for what’s required to make this center successful.”

First, Shanks said, Iowa’s farms are a solid source of biomass. And second, Iowa State has developed scientific expertise in biorenewable technologies and plant sciences.

“Just by the fact we have a broad vision to use both chemical and biological catalysts to attack this problem is something that’s been missing,” Shanks said. “The industry has been developing biorenewable technologies product by product. Pulling these ideas together into a general framework for creating a range of chemicals is a big part of the battle.”

“The other way we’ll transform this industry is through our students. They’ll take the training they receive from the center out into industry,” Nikolau said.

For related information, go to www.isa.org/networks.