Less Than Zero: Camelina Co., Praj, LanzaTech, Northwestern, GCH, Yale, NREL launch new centers of excellence to advance feedstocks, cell‐free systems, genome engineering for carbon-negative manufacturing

When in doubt, start a Center. That’s been an academic formula for a long time, but there are good reasons for doubt in the presence of so much biological innovation. How to best optimize feedstocks, how to best design biomanufacturing, how to select the best molecules to make. The world is hurtling towards Net Zero, that requires some carbon negative products. Everything is changing to the left, and to the right, so look to a Center to drive our knowledge farther and faster. We have three new centers of excellence to focus upon today. 

The Center for Camelina

In Spain, Camelina Company España, Europe’s largest camelina crop innovator and seed producer, opened their new Innovation Center in Daimiel, Spain. Camelina is grown for use by Camelina Company’s parent company Global Clean Energy to produce ultra-low carbon renewable fuels. Renewable diesel produced from camelina is a drop-in replacement for traditional diesel, but with fewer contaminants and far less emissions.

The new 420 m2 (5420 sq ft) Innovation Center will allow Camelina Company to significantly expand their research and development while enhancing their presence in one of the best performing camelina regions in Spain. Since the company began camelina production in Daimiel in 2014, farmers have increasingly adopted camelina cultivation, doubling yields to achieve over 2.500 kg/ha, thanks to strategic breeding and improved farmers’ practices.

Camelina Company introduces nonfood camelina into existing crop rotations as a cover crop or replacement of traditional fallow periods, without causing food displacement. By employing its proprietary camelina varieties and prediction models, Camelina Company optimizes its elite varieties in different cropping systems, primarily in Europe and South America.

Praj’s Center for Biopolymers

In India, Praj Industries and ICT signed a MOU for India’s first Center Of Excellence & Innovation for Biopolymers. The Parimal And Pramod Chaudhari Centre Of Excellence and Innovation For Biopolymers” and will undertake research, promote academic pursuit and explore newer applications.

CoEI will have a State of the Art laboratory for developing novel methods & standards for biopolymers characterization, processing and modification. Besides enhancing existing usage of biopolymers in medical and cosmetic field, CoEI intends to expand its application in other sectors. These include industries such as packaging, food service, consumer goods, agriculture, textiles, electronics, energy storage etc. CoEI will take up application development of bio plastics viz. PHA and PLA as its first collaborative project.

RCMs provide sustainable alternatives to chemicals and material derived from fossil resources. As a part of ‘Race to Zero’ campaign towards carbon neutrality, several global conglomerates are adopting sustainable materials to minimize their carbon footprints.

Praj has been developing and deploying innovative process solutions in Bioeconomy since past four decades. The BioMobility platform of biofuels for decarbonatization of transportation sector and the Bio-Prism portfolio of technologies for production of RCM for carbon recycling are Praj’s flagship offerings in Bioeconomy.

ICT is India’s premier university devoted to education, training, research and industrial collaboration in chemical engineering, chemical technology, applied chemistry, pharmacy, biotechnology and bio-processing. ICT Mumbai’s Polymer and Surface Engineering department has been involved in the education and research in the area of polymer science and engineering since 1950 and has expert faculty and laboratories.

The LanzaTech, Northwestern University, Yale University, and NREL Center for cell‐free systems and genome engineering

In Illinois, DOE recently announced a grant of $18.5 million to a team from Northwestern University, LanzaTech NZ, Inc. (LanzaTech), Yale University, and National Renewable Energy Laboratory for integrating cell‐free systems and genome engineering to accelerate biosystems design for carbon‐negative biomanufacturing. 

With the DOE grant by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) Genomic Sciences Program (GSP), the research team will work to interweave in vivo and in vitro approaches, developing new Synthetic Biology tools and Artificial Intelligence models. They will also establish a predictive, system-level understanding of CO2-utilizing biosystems to accelerate sustainable biomanufacturing, and engineer industrially relevant CO2-utilizing biosystems that produce advanced and performance-advantaged fuels and chemical precursors.

The work will look to understand the fundamental rules that drive microbial systems and how they can make new products through biological design. This is expected to help support new approaches to biomanufacturing by developing performance-advantaged alternatives to materials, fuels, and solvents today exclusively made from virgin fossil inputs.

Northwestern University and LanzaTech have a long history of collaboration. This work builds upon a Biosystems Design award Northwestern University and LanzaTech received that demonstrated ground-breaking work on how in vitro prototyping of biochemical pathways can accelerate design of biological cell-factories and carbon-negative biomanufacturing of essential platform chemicals acetone and isopropanol. Professor Michael Jewett, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University and Director for Northwestern University’s Center of Synthetic Biology, will lead the project.

The Bottom Line

Centers aplenty — what’s the common thread? The recognition that biology is big, and that we are just now at the dawn of this technology wave. The impact is not only on manufacturing but on the raw materials themselves — which is something the Industrial Revolution and the Digital revolution could not do. In the Digital revolution, we have completely remade our society in terms of the product we use, and even how we make them — manufacturing now is not manufacturing in the 1950s, with robotics, intelligence, nanotech and more.

In the same way, the Industrial Revolution changed what we made and how we made it. But neither of those revolutions changed the raw materials themselves. Coal is coal iron is iron, silicon is silicon — we changed materials, for example moving from vacuum tubes to silicon or from coal to coke or iron to steel — but we did not change the materials.

In the Biological Revolution, the raw materials themselves are changing. Today’s camelina is not tomorrow’s, nor is the corn of today anything like the corn of the 15th century, the oil profiles of oilseeds are changing, we are learning about artificial photosynthesis or how to alter or stop metabolic processes.

That’s what’s different, and the difference is not small, and it will change much now and much more later.

Reaction from the stakeholders

“Camelina provides many agronomic benefits for farmers – it prevents erosion, diversifies the crop rotation, and acts as a harvestable cover crop that provides additive revenues to farmers – while also contributing to our clean energy future through the production of renewable fuels,” Global Clean Energy Chief Executive Officer Richard Palmer said. “The opening of this new facility showcases camelina’s rapid growth in Europe and we are proud of Camelina Company’s expansion.”

“The opening of this new Innovation Center is an important milestone in Camelina Company’s journey to deploy camelina as a profitable cover crop for farmers, while providing a fully sustainable solution for advanced biofuels,” Camelina Company’s Director Yuri Herreras Yambanis said. “In Daimiel we will be able to expand our field testing and breeding activities while ensuring a full presence close to our partner farmers in our best performing area of Spain.”

Dr. Pramod Chaudhari, Founder Chairman of Praj, said, “We are delighted to further reinforce our ongoing relationship with ICT through this MoU. World is grappling with climate crisis, and we need innovative technology solutions to ensure sustainable development. Together with ICT we intend to accelerate transition to carbohydrate-based economy by unleashing huge application potential of biopolymers. I am certain that CoEI will pave way for greater usage of environment friendly materials in industry as well as society.”

Prof. Aniruddha Pandit, Vice Chancellor of ICT Mumbai said, “This is the future of renewable polymers, both of biological origin and biodegradable. The joining of forces by ICT and PRAJ is complementary and is a great multiplier. The expertise from fermentation to polymer processing of this combined team is expected to come out with sustainable solutions in this field of renewable polymers”

LanzaTech CEO Dr. Jennifer Holmgren recently spoke at the White House Summit on Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing, where she shared her vision for a post-pollution future. “By 2040,” Dr. Holmgren said, “we hope that every U.S. consumer, regardless of where they are from or how much they earn, will have direct access to a sustainable version of every product they purchase.”

“Innovation alone will not be enough to accelerate the work we are doing in creating a circular economy,” Holmgren said. “However, through collaboration and the support of the Department of Energy, we will be able to scale our work and have several platforms to support the growing carbon-negative biomanufacturing industry. We are reimagining a world that frees ourselves from relying on fossil resources,” Holmgren said. “The work we are doing with Northwestern University, Yale, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is preparing ourselves for a post-pollution future and a more circular economy.”

U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said of the DOE overall $178 million in grants, “These projects will continue to advance the boundaries of biotechnology and support the emergence of a thriving U.S. bioeconomy that creates good-paying jobs and helps us meet our climate goals.”

“We need to advance and apply our capacity to partner with biology to make what is needed, where and when it is needed, on a sustainable and renewable basis,” Northwestern Professor Michael Jewett said. “This project will allow us to grow US-based manufacturing through fundamental research insights.”