Grainnet

University of Illinois Researchers Planning New $20 Million Bioenergy Research Facility

Urbana, IL -- Researchers from several disciplines at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (U of I) have begun to plan a new $20 million research facility dedicated to interdisciplinary bioenergy research.

The Integrated Bioprocessing and Research Laboratory (IBRL), anticipated to be completed in spring 2009, will encompass 50,000 square feet.

Some 25 faculty researchers representing multiple disciplines will have office space and related pilot space in the facility.

Additional office space also will be available to industrial partners.

The U of I has released $3.2 million for planning the IBRL.

Research done at the IBRL will focus on employing advanced bioprocessing technology required to produce biomass-based fuels, such as cellulosic ethanol, other biofuels, and other biochemicals economically, according to Hans P. Blaschek, professor and Assistant Dean of the U of I College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences Office of Research.

The IBRL also will include an interdisciplinary educational component to train scientists and skilled workers for tomorrow's biotech industry, as well as to educate consumers, producers, and others.

The IBRL also will provide a flexible processing environment for the discovery of new food and industrial bioprocesses and products.

"Specifically, the IBRL is a translational facility for scale up and testing of bio fuels and other bio-products," said Blaschek.

"It is a multidiscplinary research facility, with capabilities focused on the chemical, physical, and biological conversion of renewal feedstocks to biofuels and other value-added products."

Blaschek said the scientists working at the IBRL will employ multi-stage processes by which soybeans, corn, and other grains and cellulosic crops such as Miscanthus giganteus and switchgrass are converted to new and improved animal feeds, human foods, nutraceuticals (functional foods), energy sources, industrial feedstocks, and chemicals.

Staffing for the facility will include the administration associated with the newly created Center for Advanced BioEnergy Research (CABER), headed by Blaschek.

Other CABER staff include an associate director, personnel involved in marketing, and outreach and secretarial staff.

The new facility is part of a $125 million grant proposal now being considered by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

In addition to the U of I, collaborators on the grant proposal include Argonne National Laboratory, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, Archer Daniels Midland Co., and Chromatin Inc.

The DOE Genomes-to-Life (GTL) grant proposal also calls for the creation of a BioEnergy Research Institute (BERI) that will focus on four central themes: sustainability, feedstock development, plant cell wall desconstruction, and fermentative conversion of sugars to fuels.

Each theme will involve a team of leading investigators from a variety of disciplines, with distinguished research records in their areas, according to Blaschek.