Draft2:Bioprocessing Separations Consortium
The Bioprocessing Separations Consortium (BioSEP) is a National Laboratory-led effort, supported by the Bioenergy Technologies Office, that is dedicated to identifying and overcoming separations challenges associated with the conversion of biomass into fuels and chemicals.
The Bioprocessing Separations Consortium brings together teams from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Laboratories to move cost-effective, high-performing separations technologies to market through coordinated separations research that targets industry-relevant challenges. This Consortium’s work is helping to reduce bioprocess separations costs, which can account for up to 50-70% of processing costs. Leveraging unique laboratory capabilities, our work includes the development of new separation technologies and application of existing technologies to new bioprocessing challenges.
DOE's role
Bioprocessing Separations Consortium is:
- supported by the Bioenergy Technologies Office
- involves National laboratories
Mission/Objectives
The technical challenges in bioprocessing separations are as varied and diverse as the different types of biomass, conversion routes, and target products. In addition, biomass deconstruction produces chemically complex mixtures and desired products are often at low concentrations in aqueous streams. Finally, bioprocessing separations are significantly less mature than industrial separations that are well-established in the petrochemical industry, and there is a lack of heuristics or baselines to help guide separations approaches.
Stakeholders
- Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
- Argonne National Laboratory
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
History
In 2016, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office established the Bioprocessing Separations Consortium to address both the technical challenges related to bioprocessing separations and stakeholder feedback that separations challenges preclude the cost-competitive production of biofuels and bioproducts. The goal of the Bioprocessing Separations Consortium is to develop separations technologies that are cost-effective, high-performing, and scalable through coordinated research at the National Laboratories.
Organization
The Consortium is overseen by a Steering Committee and guided by an Industrial Advisory Board to develop and maintain and industrially-relevant research portfolio. In addition to providing guidance related to technical and economic performance of technologies for go/no-go decisions, the Steering Committee coordinates team structure and direction to align with high-level goals of the U.S. Department of Energy, Bioenergy Technologies Office.
Advisory Board
The Bioprocessing Separations Consortium interacts with an Industrial Advisory Board that is composed of experts in biomanufacturing, separations technologies, and industrial biotechnology. The Industrial Advisory Board helps the Consortium maintain an industry-relevant focus and contributes knowledge of recent technology advances and challenges.
The Advisory Board meets with the Consortium bi-annually to
- Review results and progress relative to work plans
- Prioritize research projects
- Inform development of Consortium strategy for the future
Research
The Consortium’s research portfolio is organized into 3 pillars:
- Analysis
- BETO Collaborative Projects
- New Capability Development
Analysis
The crosscutting analysis team is integrated with the technology research teams to conduct techno-economic and life-cycle analyses to inform research directions and project milestones. Proposed separations strategies and results are incorporated into Design Cases for different conversion routes that are under study at the National Laboratories to estimate each project’s economic and sustainability impacts.
BETO Collaborative Projects
The Consortium’s research portfolio is also engineered to addresses the needs and interests of other Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) consortia, including ChemCatBio, the Agile BioFoundry, Co-Optima, and the Consortium for Computational Physics and Chemistry, through our BETO collaborative projects.
New Capability Development
The Consortium’s portfolio includes the development of new capabilities that include separation technologies and materials for product recovery and process intensification.
Technology Focus Areas
- Algae Processing
- Biocatalyst Preservation
- Biochemical
- Crosscutting Analysis
- Thermochemical