Center for Bioenergy Innovation research supports Terragia biofuels approach

November 20, 2024

• Biology and Environment

Using technology developed by researchers working with the Center for Bioenergy Innovation at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Dartmouth College, startup company Terragia Biofuel is targeting commercial biofuels production that relies on plant waste material and consumes less energy. The technology can help meet the demand for billions of gallons of liquid biofuels for airplanes, ships and long-haul trucks.

New Hampshire-based Terragia plans to commercialize an approach that uses feedstocks such as plant-based lignocellulose - the tough, fibrous parts of plants that aren't consumed as food - to make ethanol and other products at a much lower cost than today's technology. The approach leverages bacteria that are good at digesting and converting plant waste in a one-step consolidated bioprocessing method without the addition of costly enzymes or thermochemical pretreatment currently used in conventional approaches to ethanol production.

The firm is advancing innovative approaches, including several licensed technologies resulting from work completed through the Center for Bioenergy Innovation, or CBI. CBI is a DOE Bioenergy Research Center that brings together about 250 scientists from 17 partner institutions, including Dartmouth and Terragia, to develop bioenergy-relevant plants, microbes and processing methods for biofuels production. CBI and its predecessor, the BioEnergy Science Center, or BESC, have generated nearly 40 patents for biofuels technologies that are available for licensing.

Terragia's technology uses engineered bacteria such as Clostridium thermocellum that thrive at high temperatures and accomplish, in a single process, the release of soluble sugars from plant waste and fermentation of those sugars to make ethanol or other biofuels. The consolidated bioprocessing occurs without the addition of oxygen and has documented potential to substantially reduce capital costs and process energy inputs.

No-waste approach for jet fuel blendstocks

The method can utilize crop and forest residues as well as purpose-grown, nonfood perennial crops like poplar trees and switchgrass. The process yields "wet" ethanol, meaning it contains 20% water, that is then converted into blendstock fuels for jet engines. This microbial-driven process could be bolted onto existing ethanol refineries and use the corn stalks, cobs, husks and leaves typically treated as waste after the facilities process corn kernels.

"The ethanol produced by this consolidated bioprocessing method can be used in a certified jet fuel blendstock at a lower cost than what is currently being made in the corn-to-ethanol method because no further distillation is required of the intermediate wet ethanol," said Gerald Tuskan, CBI director and ORNL Corporate Fellow. The method developed by CBI "allows current ethanol producers to take what is now a solid waste stream in their manufacturing process and convert it into additional ethanol output."

The aviation industry has a goal of replacing 50% of its fuel, about 35 billion gallons, with sustainable options by the year 2050. The latest 2023 Billion-Ton report produced by ORNL for DOE's Bioenergy Technologies Office revealed that the United States has more than 1 billion tons of nonfood plant-based feedstock available to produce such fuels.

"Terragia thinks of itself as a partner to industrial fuel producers," said Terragia CEO Kristin Brief. "We envision working in close partnership with the firms who have access to plant feedstocks by supplying the technology to break down multiple types of plant material, enabling them to produce ethanol and other co-products."

Terragia has raised $6 million in seed funding, led by investors Energy Impact Partners and The Engine, to help commercialize the biology-based technology. Terragia is co-locating its lab incubator space near CBI partner Dartmouth as it works on scaling the technology for industry. The company is currently working on a research and development project with a U.S. biofuels producer to adapt the consolidated bioprocessing method to a feedstock of interest.

"The biofuels industry understands that cellulosic plant-derived fuel is a missing link needed to reach aviation sector goals," said Lee Lynd, a longtime collaborator with CBI/BESC, Distinguished Professor at Dartmouth and Chief Technology Officer at Terragia.

"CBI has made it possible for Terragia to bring the technology out into the world," Lynd said.

Lynd referenced a large CBI study in 2022 that found producing cellulosic ethanol biologically and then catalytically upgrading it to larger hydrocarbon molecules for use in fuel blendstocks is a promising pathway for fuel production.

"With our years at CBI gaining fundamental understanding of the deconstruction process of lignocellulosic plant material, Terragia is now able to adopt that technology to create a business model that is attracting venture capital for further development into a commercial entity," Tuskan said. CBI's expertise dedicated to bioenergy research for a strong bioeconomy ranges from genomics and synthetic biology for plant and microbe development, to computational science, catalysis and chemical engineering and economics.

Lynd said CBI is "a shining example of an organization facilitating the kind of interdisciplinary research needed to move the science to the point where investors come in and propel a new company forward. CBI has kept its headlights on the road's horizon rather than what's just at its feet. Covering that distance has meant tackling work at a very large magnitude with dedication across a relatively long timeframe and sustaining a collaborative framework across multiple science areas."

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE's Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.