Bioenergy @ Penn State

Focus

Research on technologies that harness energy from biological sources, from bioenergy feedstock production to conversion and utilization; development of sustainable systems for bioenergy production and carbon capture that enhance the natural environment.

Highlights

  • Penn State has strengths in fundamental and applied research related to production, structure, and conversion of plant-based biomass.
  • Existing, relevant centers headquartered at Penn State include the Biomass Energy Center, the Northeast Regional Sun Grant Center, the Center for Lignocellulose Structure and Formation, the Center of Excellence in Industrial Biotechnology, and the Center for Excellence in Structural Biology.
  • Centers with Penn State co-leadership include the Mid-Atlantic Bioenergy Council, the US DOE Center for Bioenergy Innovation, and the Aviation Sustainability Center
  • Penn State is a world leader in research on: bioenergy farming; harvest, storage, and conversion of biomass; hydrogen production from biomass; and plant cell walls.

Goals

  • Rebrand the Biomass Energy Center as the Center for BioRenewables (C4BR) that will coordinate bioenergy activities across Penn State
  • Strategically invest in bioenergy economics, law, policy, business, and education activities
  • Enhance and coordinate research on biomass production, harvest, processing, degradation, and conversion technologies
  • Develop strategies to leverage biomass accumulation in living organisms for carbon capture and sequestration, achieving drawdown of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere
  • Help grow the nascent breeding industry for bioenergy crops into an economically attractive option for farmers in Pennsylvania and beyond
  • Facilitate collaboration with industry that leads to new funding for bioenergy research and development

Overview

The current mission of the Biomass Energy Center at Penn State is to coordinate and facilitate research and outreach in bioenergy across the university, building teams to address the complete value chain of biomass energy systems. This value chain can be classified into four categories:

  • Improved production of biomass feedstocks;
  • Integration of biomass production into sustainable agrosystems;
  • Conversion of biomass into energy; and
  • Technology transfer to companies, state agencies, NGOs, and citizens throughout the Commonwealth and beyond.

Penn State has significant strengths in each these four focal areas: each have a significant number of faculty involved, with critical masses of researchers emerging in many subtopics.

Current Activities

Funding for bioenergy-related research by Penn State faculty comes from the United States Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Current bioenergy research activities at Penn State include:

  • Metabolic modeling of biomass accumulation and of biomass-degrading organisms
  • Engineering plants that will grow faster or have more easily degradable cell walls
  • Characterizing the fundamental structure, assembly, and mechanics of plant cell walls, which form the majority of plant biomass
  • Biomass comminution, particulate mechanics, solids storage, flow, handling and densification, pretreatment, and co-treatment
  • Mechanistic investigations of biomass-degrading enzymes
  • Biological, thermochemical, and catalytic conversion technologies for bioenergy production
  • Microbial fuel cell development for electricity production from biomass
  • Nutrient recovery from waste streams into plant biomass for use as a bioenergy feedstock
  • United States bioenergy-related law and policy

Strategic Planning and Investment

Although Penn State houses a broad constellation of bioenergy-related activities, they are not linked into a coherent vision of a biorenewable future. To remedy, this, strategies and investments with the greatest future impacts include:

  • Appoint directors of the Center for BioRenewables (25% teaching release), with the ability to hire 5 faculty with research expertise in bioenergy systems, modeling, and process engineering
  • Convene a bioenergy leadership council under the Center for BioRenewables that will guide and coordinate bioenergy activities across Penn State
  • Use BioRenewables Seed Grants (4 grants/year, $100k/year total) to bridge the steps in the bioenergy pipeline that are currently being pursued independently by Penn State researchers (e.g., studying the effects of engineering bioenergy crops to improve their digestibility on planting, growth, harvesting, storage, and conversion practices)

These investments will enable Penn State researchers to:

  • Enhance our ability to capture, manipulate, transport, and release energy in the carbon-carbon and carbon-hydrogen bonds of biomass, without releasing excess carbon into the environment
  • Link environmental remediation (e.g., carbon capture, nutrient recovery) with bioenergy production
  • Leverage and engineer photosynthesis to efficiently capture and store energy in assimilated carbon and hydrogen
  • Transform the modern agricultural economy into a supplier of food, feed, materials, and energy that will power a sustainable and renewable future
  • Build on Pennsylvania’s strengths in energy, agriculture, and manufacturing to accelerate the transition to a bioenergy economy
  • Elevate Penn State to become the world leader in bioenergy research (current peers include the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Purdue University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Michigan State University, Iowa State University, and DOE Bioenergy Research Centers)

Education and Outreach

  • Graduate Program: BioRenewable Systems Graduate Program
  • Courses
    • ABE 884 & BE 464, Biomass Energy Systems
    • ABE 885, Biomass Harvesting and Logistics
    • ABE 888 & BE468, Conversion Technologies for Bioenergy Production
    • FOR 880, Bioenergy Feedstocks
  • World campus: Graduate Certificate in Bioenergy
  • Bioenergy short course series
  • Outreach activities
    • Energy Days
    • Ag Progress Days

Participants

  • Primary contact
    • Charles T. Anderson, Associate Professor of Biology (cta3@psu.edu)
  • Participants
    • Charles T. Anderson
    • Saurabh Bansal
    • Rachel Brennan
    • Nicole Brown
    • John Carlson
    • Daniel Ciolkosz
    • Daniel Cosgrove
    • Ali Demirci
    • Lara Fowler
    • Ying Gu
    • Michael Jacobson
    • Armen Kemanian
    • Seong Kim
    • Manish Kumar
    • Joel Landry
    • Costas Maranas
    • Judd Michael
    • Bruce Miller
    • Tracy Nixon
    • Jacqueline O’Connor
    • Virendra Puri
    • John Regan
    • Mohammad Rezaee
    • Tom Richard
    • Phillip Savage
    • Paul Smith
    • Chunshan Song
    • Ming Tien
    • Hojae Yi

Supplemental Information

Biomass Energy Center Website: https://bioenergy.psu.edu
(will be updated as part of the Energy 2100 Initiative)