DOE grants $2.5 million to Texas A&M to study biorefinery waste

In Texas, the U.S. Department of Energy has granted $2.5 million for a Texas A&M AgriLife Research study to find ways to use biorefinery waste to make new, marketable products. Researchers will focus much of the three-year study on ways to make plastic materials from the lignin waste. His lab has other energy department grants – $4.9 million focused on use of plants to directly produce hydrocarbons at a higher yield; and $2.4 million to design a microorganism to convert lignin to lipids, or fatty acids, for fuel.