Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center looks to designing advanced biofuels as way forward

In Wisconsin, building on the success of 10 years of investigation into the production of renewable fuels from plants, the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), led by the University of Wisconsin–Madison, recently embarked on a new mission: to develop sustainable alternatives to transportation fuels and products currently derived from petroleum.

On Feb. 18 at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Austin, Texas, Tim Donohue, GLBRC director and UW–Madison professor of bacteriology, highlighted a decade of developing economically viable bioenergy technologies, while looking forward to the next five years of establishing a production pipeline of advanced fuels and bioproducts.

Now, GLBRC is taking its mission one step further. Instead of producing ethanol, GLBRC’s goal is centered on designing advanced biofuels, such as isobutanol. These “drop-in” fuels could be used to replace gasoline without engine modification. By engineering bioenergy crops to enhance their environmental and economic value, and conducting research to generate multiple products from plant biomass, these advancements could optimize the bioenergy field-to-product pipeline.

GLBRC scientists and engineers are also improving the yield and processing traits of dedicated bioenergy crops for cultivation on marginal, or non-agricultural, land. With smart management, these crops have the potential to benefit the ecosystem, help mitigate climate change, and provide farmers with an additional source of revenue.