Goals

The NSF Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals (CBiRC) will develop the fundamental knowledge and technology and the academic and industrial partnerships needed to provide a foundation for industrial chemical production to be transformed from a petroleum-based industry to a renewable resource-based industry.

The overarching goal of CBiRC is to enable the transformation of the chemical industry through the optimized coupling of two catalyst types such that a biocatalyst will convert glucose to an intermediate chemical that can be readily converted by a chemical catalyst to the desired chemical product. It will educate a workforce capable of enabling this transformation.

CBiRC is basing its biocatalysis efforts on the fatty acid or polyketide biosynthetic pathway with a goal of enhancing microbial production through targeted engineering. Combining biocatalysis with chemical catalysis opens the door to the fatty acid or polyketide-based platform chemicals (examples include dienes and alpha-olefins) at the heart of CBiRC’s vision. All of this will be assessed in terms of a holistic life-cycle analysis addressing both economics and carbon renewability. Together, these programs are delivering new concepts that will be evaluated in test-beds for the proof-of-concept needed to evaluate production potential.