Lignin is a key obstacle to extracting sugars from biomass. Researchers have redesigned lignin to include weak bonds, or “zips,” which make it much easier to break apart. Credit: Shawn Mansfield, UBC

Great Lakes Bioenergy

Great Lakes Bioenergy is a U.S. Department of Energy-funded research center dedicated to developing sustainable biofuels and bioproducts.

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Who We Are

The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) is a U.S. Department of Energy-funded Bioenergy Research Center led by the University of Wisconsin–Madison. With Michigan State University and other partners, we are developing sustainable biofuels and bioproducts made from dedicated energy crops grown on marginal lands. Our mission is simple: creating biofuels and bioproducts that are economically viable and environmentally sustainable.

Research Themes

Sustainable cropping systems

Engineering bioenergy crops to enhance their environmental and economic value

Generating multiple products from plant biomass

Understanding and optimizing the field-to-product pipeline

Hybrid reactor system optimizes production by ‘multitasking’ microbes

Four-stage cyclic diagram of a membrane bioreactor sequencing batch process: (1) Fill — aromatics fed into reactor; (2) React — microbial conversion occurs; (3) Filter — membrane separates PDC product; (4) Harvest — solids containing astaxanthin and CoQ10 are collected.

Researchers tested a bioreactor system to process aromatics from poplar trees with a modified strain of Novosphingobium aromaticivorans that releases a chemical known as PDC while accumulating two other products inside the cells: a natural pigment and a vitamin-like substance found in most human cells. PDC can be used to make plastics, while the other products are used in nutritional supplements, cosmetics, and animal feed.

Just add water: Diluting organic solvent can lower cost of bioproducts

$Circular workflow diagram showing biomass (with solvent, H₂, catalyst) undergoing reductive catalytic fractionation to yield lignin monomers, which are funneled microbially to produce PDC. Hansen solubility parameters guide solvent selection, informed iteratively by technoeconomic and life cycle analyses.$

Building on previous work using RCF to deconstruct poplar, Great Lakes Bioenergy Research scientists evaluated six solvents in pure form and in varying mixtures with water and used the results to develop a computational model for solvent selection. The results showed a 50/50 mixture of methanol and water performed the best because it reduces reactor pressure and doesn't interfere with the microbes and lowers the break-even cost of the product by 24%.