Program Topics

Topic Area 1 - Biomass Resource Supply, Development and Characterization

• Advances in the development and application of improved agronomic practices/technologies to enhance the quantity and quality of plant materials as a renewable feedstock base.
• Developments to increase plant biomass yields.
• Improvements in harvesting technology and supply chain logistics.

• Plant science to enhance the quantity and quality of plant materials as a renewable feedstocks base.
• Native structure and diversity of plant cell walls.
• Breeding or manipulation of plant cell wall composition to improve plant yield or processing characteristics.
• In planta expression of enzymes or coproducts.

• Physicochemical characterization of biomass feedstocks and processing intermediates.
• Improved methods for physical or compositional analysis of biomass materials.
• Progress in high throughput and rapid analysis techniques for biomass.

• Fundamentals and biophysical origins of biomass recalcitrance.
• Understanding plant cell wall structure and composition.
• Improvements in cost-effective deconstruction of biomass.

Topic Area 2 - Conversion Technologies

• Developments in chemical and biochemical pretreatment or fractionation processes to improve biochemical conversion.
• Progress improving existing pretreatment/fractionation technologies
• Advances in new pretreatment/fractionation approaches, including ionic liquids

• Development of new or improved microorganisms for biorefining applications.
• Cellular and molecular biology of fungal systems.
• Anaerobic transformation of biomass by microbes or microbial communities.
• Biotechnologies to improve microorganisms for the production of fuels other than ethanol and butanol.

• Discovery, characterization, and improvement of enzymes for biomass.
• Application of enzymes to biorefinery processes.
• Progress on cost reduction of enzymes for biorefining
• Advances in the molecular level understanding of enzyme mechanisms (theoretical or experimental).

• Advances in the development, testing, integration and demonstration of bioconversion processes at various stages of process scale up (bench through pilot an larger scales).
• Improvements in biorefinery-related separations processes
• Progress in in situ product or biocatalyst recovery

Topic Area 3 - Fuels and Chemicals Products (Production, Supply and Use)

• Techno-economic evaluation of biorefinery operations
• Life cycle assessment of renewable feedstock based biorefineries
• Advances in understanding and measuring environmental sustainability for biorefineries, including considerations beyond energy efficiency such as land availability, soil quality and water use.

• Biotechnologies for the production of liquid fuels and chemicals other than ethanol and butanol.
• Progress in developing biochemical technologies to produce new fuels such as biogasoline and higher alcohols,
• Advances in merging thermochemical processes with biological conversion, as well as new targets for biomass-derived chemicals.

• Progress in demonstrating and deploying advanced biofuels/biorefining technologies.
• Alternative approaches for utilizing biomass for liquid fuels production.
• Improvements to the efficiency of integrated biochemical cellulose conversion processes.