Bioenergy Crop Research at BESC

Bioenergy Crop Research at BESC

Transformed Populus shoots grow in a greenhouse. These plants are altered in targeted cell-wall pathway genes.

Sorghum Crop in California

Developing Better Plants for Biofuels. Building a successful lignocellulosic biofuels industry depends, in part, on developing specialized, high-yielding biofuel crops that incorporate traits for optimized deconstruction, conversion, and sustainability. Pictured here, the bioenergy crop sorghum is being grown at the University of California–Davis, a JBEI partner.

Illustration of a plant cell with scales from DNA, RNA, and protein chains.

Expressing the Genome in Plant Cells

Plants are eukaryotes—organisms with cells that contain a membrane-bound nucleus. A eukaryote’s DNA is in the nucleus where mRNA is transcribed. The genes in plants and other eukaryotic organisms, such as humans and animals, contain noncoding regions called introns. In the nucleus, introns are removed from mRNA transcripts, and the remaining coding regions (called exons) are spliced back together. Once edited, the mRNA is transported outside the nucleus for translation into proteins by ribosomes.

Bioenergy crops turn into polymers and polysaccharides which turn into sugars and monomers which turn into bioproducts.

Path of Efficient Biomass Conversion

The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center is developing sustainable biofuels and bioproducts from all usable portions of dedicated energy crops grown on marginal, nonagricultural lands.

A researchers uses a machine to monitor a glass jar of lquid.

Optimizing Microbes Biomass Deconstruction

Kelsey Yee operates a process-controlled Applikon fermenter to evaluate how well Caldicellulosiruptor obsidiansis (a consolidated bioprocessing microbe) ferments simple sugars derived from poplar pretreated with dilute acid.

Rows of plant seedlings in small containers.

Model Plant Arabidopsis

Assay Tool for Characterizing Plant Sugar Transporters. A family of six nucleotide sugar transporters never before described were characterized in Arabidopsis (pictured), a model plant for research in advanced biofuels.

Rhizosphere Microbes Colonizing Poplar Roots

Characterizing Plant-Microbe Interfaces. This confocal image shows the microbial isolate Variovorax CF313 (green) colonizing transgenic Populus PdKOR roots. Better understanding of the symbiotic relationships between organisms can help researchers engineer hardier bioenergy crops and more productive ecosystems.

A researcher watches a robot load a tray with samples.

Analyzing Biomass Recalcitrance

National Renewable Energy Laboratory senior scientist Steve Decker watches a robot dispense samples of powdered biomass into a reactor plate as part of a high-throughput recalcitrance pipeline for studying sugar release in potential biofuel feedstocks.

A field of sorghum plants with paper bags over their leaves.

Bagged Sorghum Flowers

Developing Better Plants for Biofuels. Building a successful lignocellulosic biofuels industry depends, in part, on developing specialized biofuel crops that are optimized for deconstruction into sugars and fermentation into biofuels and bioproducts. Pictured is sorghum, a bioenergy crop being grown at the University of California–Davis, a JBEI partner. The sorghum flowers are bagged to prevent pollen exchange.

Miscanthus and switchgrass are the primary crops in the Midwest; poplar, switchgrass and sorghum are grown in the south; agave in the Southwest, and willows in the Northeast.

Approximate Geographic Distribution of Potential Biomass Crops

Multiple crop types designed for various agroecosystems will require continued development to realize biomass yields for large-scale production of biofuels and bioproducts. As research progresses, new crop types could be added and the boundaries of their likely ranges could change. Agricultural residues (e.g., wheat straw, rice hulls, and corn stover) are not included on this map.