Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) - FY23-27

Developing sustainable ways to produce transportation fuels and chemicals while reducing greenhouse gas emissions is among society’s greatest challenges. We envision a future in which producing specialty biofuels and bioproducts from bioenergy crops will generate environmental and economic benefits for refineries, farmers, and communities. To help realize this vision, GLBRC research activities will address three knowledge gaps in the production of specialty biofuels and bioproducts from dedicated bioenergy crops that are grown on bioenergy lands. Our products will include knowledge and advances so lignocellulosic refineries can generate a profitable mix of specialty biofuels and bioproducts from all major biomass fractions of bioenergy crops.

Sustainable Bioenergy Cropping Systems. We propose that lignocellulosic refineries will process bioenergy crops that have high yield, value, and traits tailored to increase productivity in a changing climate. Our goal is to develop a portfolio of bioenergy crops suitable for growth on non-food lands, with environmental benefit and economic value for conversion to specialty biofuels and bioproducts.

Sustainable Biomass Conversion. We propose that lignocellulosic refineries will need to generate valuable products from all major biomass fractions of bioenergy crops. Our goal is to generate the knowledge and microbial chassis needed to sustainably convert as much of the biomass as economically feasible into specialty biofuels and bioproducts.

Sustainable Field-to-Product Optimization. We propose that lignocellulosic biorefineries will need field-to-product systems that are resilient to the impacts of field and crop variations on processing. Our goal is to mitigate the impacts of feedstock variability on specialty biofuels and bioproducts synthesis by developing sustainable field-to-product systems that will be needed by refineries.