NSF awards $30 million to Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation

In Virginia, the National Science Foundation has announced 15 Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation grants for fiscal year 2012, awarding nearly $30 million to 68 investigators at 26 institutions. Over the next four years, teams of researchers will work in three emerging areas. One set of research teams will investigate the large-scale use of micro-organisms that harness solar energy to produce chemicals and fuels from CO2. The researchers will investigate the optimization of micro-organisms themselves and their growing conditions to produce easily processed hydrocarbon chemicals in large quantities. The researchers also will explore ways to obtain a variety of value-added compounds, whether by using an array of micro-organisms or by combining biological processes with chemical catalysis. Each project will pursue efficiency and sustainability in a number of ways.