Saturday, August 24, 2024

WashU to lead $26 million decarbonization initiative

Washington University in St. Louis

By Beth Miller

To minimize the impact of man-made climate change, it is essential to significantly and rapidly decrease carbon dioxide emissions while simultaneously meeting the energy and manufacturing needs of a healthy and economically stable society. A powerhouse collaboration of universities and industry, led by the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, is embarking on a bold plan to transform manufacturing toward zero or negative emissions by converting carbon dioxide ultimately into environmentally friendly chemicals and products that create a circular economy.

The Carbon Utilization Redesign for Biomanufacturing-Empowered Decarbonization (CURB) Engineering Research Center (ERC) is funded by a five-year, $26 million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). The award — one of only four the NSF awarded nationwide in 2024 — supports convergent projects that include research, education, commercialization, workforce development, and diversity and inclusion that will lead to societal change.

“The vision of CURB is as a vibrant global research and innovation ecosystem that transforms U.S. manufacturing by capturing and leveraging carbon dioxide emissions and thereby decreasing the human ecological footprint,” said Aaron F. Bobick, dean and the James M. McKelvey Professor in McKelvey Engineering. “For McKelvey Engineering to lead this research project represents the increased sophistication of the school’s research and its ability to support an activity of this scale and in alignment with our strategic priorities.”

McKelvey Engineering brings its broad, unique experience with the nation’s first Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering to lead the ambitious project in collaboration with prominent researchers at the University of Delaware, Prairie View A&M University and Texas A&M University.

‘’This is not just another grant — this center has the opportunity to transform the U.S. economy,” said Joshua Yuan, chair of the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering in McKelvey Engineering, the Lucy & Stanley Lopata Professor and director of CURB. “Because of low photosynthesis efficiency, there is no way that the current bioprocesses can replace all petrochemical products using limited land and natural resources. CURB will create highly efficient chem-bio hybrid systems to convert renewable energy and carbon dioxide into chemicals, fuels and materials. This will decarbonize U.S. manufacturing and replace a substantial amount of petrochemical products. CURB will drive a new circular carbon economy to fulfill the needs of human society while mitigating carbon emission. That is what is at stake with this center.”

Yuan leads the center with co-principal investigators Feng Jiao, professor of energy, environmental & chemical engineering, and Marcus Foston, associate professor of energy, environmental & chemical engineering, both at WashU; Susie Dai, associate professor of plant pathology and microbiology at Texas A&M University; and Irvin W. Osborne-Lee, professor of chemical engineering at Prairie View A&M. They are joined by 10 tenured faculty members and two senior lecturers from McKelvey Engineering, as well as 30 faculty members at seven universities; more than 30 corporate, innovation and education partners; and extensive administrative support. Twenty-one companies have committed as member organizations for the project. Among them are Brewer Science Inc.; JERA Americas Inc.; MilliporeSigma; Nestle Purina; Peabody; Skytree B.V.; Spire; and Southwest Airlines.

Among CURB’s strategic goals include advancing scientific discoveries to create new hybrid engineering systems creating pilot-scale testbed facilities; demonstrating the economics and publishing the research results; filing for patents; and developing new educational programs for middle and high school students and undergraduate and graduate students, among others. By the end of the first five years, they expect to have expanded the member network, hosted multiple showcase events, created more than 20 internships with industry partners and launched startup companies based on the research to transform U.S. manufacturing.

“I’m thrilled that the McKelvey School of Engineering was chosen to lead this ambitious decarbonization initiative,” said Chancellor Andrew D. Martin. “This endeavor represents a significant investment in research and innovation, showcasing the advanced capabilities of our institution and aligning with our core mission. We look forward to collaborating with our partners to generate new opportunities and make a lasting positive impact.”

“This funding, and the work that will result, demonstrates WashU's strategic vision in which societal challenges are solved through the strengths of our region and our university,” said Beverly Wendland, WashU provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs. “Collaboration that convenes disciplines, universities and industries will bring about world-class research that leads to real-world solutions, and I am incredibly proud our McKelvey colleagues are leading this effort. This is a powerful signal for the future of research on our Danforth Campus and the impact WashU and St. Louis can make together.”

The research

CURB will use a Hybrid Electro-Bio CO2 Utilization System (HEBCUS) that uses electrocatalysis to turn waste carbon dioxide into intermediate substances, such as ethanol, acetate and propionate. These intermediates will be compatible with biomanufacturing systems that can more efficiently convert them into a range of products, such as platform chemicals, biofertilizers and other environmentally responsible materials.

The team will design and optimize two types of HEBCUS: one that uses microbial cells to convert carbon dioxide and one that uses enzymes. The system will be 10 times more efficient than natural processes, such as photosynthesis, and requires fewer steps. CURB will drive new research areas that connect with HEBCUS systems, including integrating renewable energy sources, energy storage applications and biomanufacturing of diverse products.

“Soluble multi-carbon intermediates produced with HEBCUS present a unique advantage over methanol, formate, hydrogen and carbon monoxide-based platforms, enabling substantially improved mass, energy and electron transfers that overcome the gas-to-liquid transfer challenges of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, compatibility with many microbes for efficient conversion into a broad range of products with fewer steps, and the design of multi-enzyme cell-free systems for chemical and polymer synthesis with fewer steps,” Jiao said.

Researchers will then take the new materials and test them for life cycle emissions, supply chain design, market for new products, and environmental justice impact, among other things to identify potential barriers to commercialization and ways to improve the societal, environmental, economic and ecological impacts.

“The goal is to make this process so effective that it is as cost effective to make your materials out of the carbon dioxide you pull out of the air as it would be to pull oil out of the ground, because then it’s economically viable,” Bobick said. “Nothing will change until we achieve that, because there is unlikely to be a policy approach that provides a sustainable way out of global warming or climate change. You have to make it economically viable.”

Workforce development

The new technology designed and implemented through CURB is expected to create new jobs that will create new opportunities for people in the community. In addition to jobs, CURB will create new career and training pathways for upskilling, a workforce transition into sectors that are difficult to decarbonize, such as chemical production, through biomanufacturing. This transition aims to enhance U.S. workers’ ability to support themselves and their families while contributing to sustainability of U.S. manufacturing.

“As part of this ERC, we are focused on the workforce development that goes along with a new industry that relies on a new pathway for carbon,” Foston said. “The United States has a strong foundation in biomanufacturing for pharmaceuticals and vaccines. CURB seeks to broaden this expertise to encompass chemicals and materials, thereby driving a comprehensive shift toward biomanufacturing. This initiative begins with education and outreach, establishing a pipeline as early as K-12 schools to cultivate the next generation of engineers and skilled workers in these emerging fields.”

“Building an inclusive innovation system that brings technologies to market that solve broad societal challenges through the bioeconomy is core to the mission of BioSTL,” said Justin Raymundo, vice president of innovation ecosystem-building for BioSTL, the backbone organization for the bioscience innovation ecosystem in St. Louis and CURB innovation partner. “These types of efforts, such as CURB, are exactly what we want to see. It represents continued investment in St. Louis and our innovation economy. We’re excited to contribute significantly to CURB’s leadership in U.S. manufacturing every step of the way and collaborate across community engagement, workforce development, and innovation ecosystem efforts — from idea to growth stage — to create opportunities, jobs and have a huge societal impact into the circular economy.”

NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC)

Since the program began in 1985, NSF has funded 75 ERCs throughout the United States. With up to 10 years of support for each center, this investment has led to more than 240 spinoff companies; more than 900 patents; more than 14,400 total bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees to ERC students; and numerous research outcomes enabling new technologies.

"NSF's Engineering Research Centers ask big questions in order to catalyze solutions with far-reaching impacts," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "NSF Engineering Research Centers are powerhouses of discovery and innovation, bringing America's great engineering minds to bear on our toughest challenges. By collaborating with industry and training the workforce of the future, ERCs create an innovation ecosystem that can accelerate engineering innovations, producing tremendous economic and societal benefits for the nation."

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The McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis promotes independent inquiry and education with an emphasis on scientific excellence, innovation and collaboration without boundaries. McKelvey Engineering has top-ranked research and graduate programs across departments, particularly in biomedical engineering, environmental engineering and computing, and has one of the most selective undergraduate programs in the country. With 165 full-time faculty, 1,420 undergraduate students, 1,616 graduate students and 21,000 living alumni, we are working to solve some of society’s greatest challenges; to prepare students to become leaders and innovate throughout their careers; and to be a catalyst of economic development for the St. Louis region and beyond

uOttawa researcher and partners design AI approach to drought zoning

How will climate change impact Canada, home to the largest number of lakes in the world?

University of Ottawa

uOttawa researcher and partners design AI approach to drought zoning — image:
“Our research provides a detailed analysis of historical drought patterns and projections for future drought trends”
Hossein Bonakdari
— Associate Professor, uOttawa’s Department of Civil Engineering
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Credit: University of Ottawa

How will climate change impact Canada, home to the largest number of lakes in the world?

A recent study by the University of Ottawa and Laval University shows that climate change may cause many areas in Canada to experience significant droughts by the end of the century. In response, the researchers have introduced an advanced AI-based method to map drought-prone regions nationwide.

The research was conducted by a dedicated team of highly qualified personnel (HQP) under the supervision of Associate Professor Hossein Bonakdari, from uOttawa’s Department of Civil Engineering, in collaboration with Professor Silvio Gumiere from Laval University. The project is supported by funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through the Discovery Grant program and the Québec government’s Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Nature et Technologies.

“Drought is a significant threat to Canada, impacting agriculture, water resources and ecosystems,” explains Professor Bonakdari, lead researcher on the project. “Our research provides a detailed analysis of historical drought patterns and projections for future drought trends, allowing for more informed decision-making in climate resilience planning.”

The study offers a crucial and detailed understanding of how climate change will reshape Canada’s environmental landscape, particularly with respect to precipitation patterns, temperature increases and drought frequency. The findings reveal that:

Northern (Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Yukon) and central regions (Saskatchewan, Alberta) are projected to face the most severe drought conditions.
Coastal and eastern provinces may experience less severe, but still significant, changes.
Under extreme climate scenarios, nearly half of Canada could be affected by severe drought by 2100.

This study uses deep-learning techniques and integrates data from the Canadian Drought Monitor (CDM) and ERA5-Land to analyze historical drought patterns and to project future trends up to 2100. According to Professor Bonakdari, “this innovative approach fills data gaps and enables robust projections under different climate change scenarios outlined by the sixth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. The ability to accurately forecast drought areas in Canada using AI is a significant advancement in climate resilience planning.”

Key messages for the public include:

Surprising fact: Drought in Canada isn’t just a southern problem. Northern areas, like Nunavut, Northwest Territories, and Yukon, are expected to face severe drought conditions in the coming decades.
Myth debunked: Stable precipitation does not mean no drought. Even with stable precipitation, rising temperatures will exacerbate drought conditions across Canada.
Critical insight: The severity of future droughts and temperature increases will depend on current actions. Robust climate policies and adaptation strategies are urgently needed to mitigate these impacts.
Urgency in Northern regions: Northern regions, often overlooked in climate discussions, are among the most vulnerable. The projected temperature increases and intensified droughts in these areas highlight the need for targeted climate action.

This study, published in Climate Journal, offers useful insights for policymakers, resource managers and stakeholders throughout Canada. By recognizing differences in regional drought risks and the impact of rising temperatures, they can take proactive steps to safeguard Canadian communities and ecosystems amidst a changing climate.

Journal

Climate

DOI

10.3390/cli12080119

Method of Research

Meta-analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Advanced Forecasting of Drought Zones in Canada Using Deep Learning and CMIP6 Projections

Shape-shifting WVU robot inspired by insect swarms and tree roots is teaching itself to mark contamination zones

West Virginia University

image:
In Yu Gu’s Interactive Robotics Laboratory at WVU, doctoral student Trevor Smith observes Loopy, a multicellular robot that is learning to respond organically and autonomously to its environment.
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Credit: WVU Photo/Brian Persinger

West Virginia University roboticists are working on an alternative path to robot autonomy in Loopy, a “multicellular robot” composed of a ring of individual interconnected robot cells.

Supported by a National Science Foundation award, the WVU team will test Loopy’s ability to “co-design” itself, determining its own shape with limited support from human engineers. With no direct programming of its behaviors, they believe Loopy can learn to use its body to mark the boundary of a contaminated area, such as the site of an oil or toxin spill.

Inspired by natural phenomenon like an ant swarm clustering around a spilled soda or a system of tree roots growing around obstacles, Loopy changes form as each of its cells responds organically to the environment.

Lead researcher Yu Gu, the Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering Academy of Distinguished Alumni Professor at the WVU Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, said the ability to reshape itself could make Loopy “transformative” to robotics, with the potential ability, unmatched by conventional robots, to respond flexibly to unpredictable real-world situations.

“Loopy originated as a thought experiment in my lab,” Gu said. “It was conceived as a challenge to the prevalent ‘top down’ thinking in robotics, in which the robot is passive and the human designs, programs and builds it.

“In contrast, Loopy is an example of ‘swarm robotics.’ Many small robot cells interlink to make Loopy, allowing lifelike traits and complex, coordinated behaviors like problem-solving to emerge from the cells’ simple, decentralized reactions to stimuli.”

Loopy’s body is made up of 36 identical cells physically connected in a circle. Each cell can control its own movement, and each cell has sensors that keep it informed about its joint angle as well as external stimuli like light and temperature.

To track how Loopy responds to different situations, Gu’s lab is outfitted with a tabletop test environment equipped with overhead cameras, a motion capture system and a projector. Under the table, heating wires will create warm spots that simulate contamination areas. An overhead thermal camera visualizes the heatmap, and each of Loopy’s cells has a temperature sensor embedded in its foot.

With doctoral student and NSF graduate fellow Trevor Smith, of Appalachia, Pennsylvania, Gu will test Loopy in various unpredictable conditions, including different surface materials and obstacles. They’ll evaluate Loopy’s accuracy in circling contamination areas, Loopy’s responses to the unforeseen, and Loopy’s tolerance of situations about which it has little or inaccurate information.

At the same time, they’ll compare the solutions Loopy finds organically with a more conventional, centralized approach in which a human designer can access all the sensor data and control Loopy’s individual cells.

“The research progress on Loopy will likely be nonlinear and unpredictable,” Gu said. “More often than not, the outcome of our experiments with Loopy is unexpected, and that has been a source of insight and a driver for future investigations.

“What we want to know is whether Loopy’s self-organized solutions to problems offer greater adaptability and resilience than programmed behaviors, and how to harness robotic swarm behaviors for practical applications. Once we have established the conditions that foster the spontaneous emergence of these complex behaviors in multicellular robots, I believe robots that work like Loopy will have potential for applications as diverse as adaptive leak sealing or interactive art displays.”

While conventional, top down robot systems are “unnatural and brittle” and struggle to adapt to novel conditions, in swarm robotics, the collective intelligence of simple cells allows new behaviors to emerge naturally, through a “bottom up” process.

“Our approach is philosophically similar to permaculture, in which human land managers work with rather than against nature to create self-sufficient, sustainable agricultural ecosystems,” Gu said. “In our robot design process, there are three equal players: humans, the robot and the environment.”

Of the several biological models for Loopy, Gu found particular inspiration in studies on plant intelligence. For example, chemical signaling in plants served as his model for the way decentralized information among cells can contribute to collective behavior.

“Plant roots grow by producing new cells,” he explained. “Each of those cells responds to extrinsic factors like the presence of water or nutrients and intrinsic factors like hormones. Those responses, en masse, coordinate root growth — where the roots go, the shapes they form. That’s just one biological mechanism underscoring the importance of distributed coordination, as opposed to centralized control, in complex systems.”

“This work blurs the lines between a robot’s physical form, its behavior and its environment,” Gu added. “Loopy could fundamentally alter our understanding of autonomy, adaptability and design in robotics.”

Loopy, a multicellular robot at the center of research in the WVU Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, could fundamentally alter understanding of autonomy, adaptability and design in robotics.

Credit

WVU Photo/Brian Persinger

Bacteria make thermally stable plastics similar to polystyrene and PET for the first time

Cell Press

image:
30L fed-batch fermentation aromatic polymer
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Credit: Minju Kang and Sang Yup Lee

Bioengineers around the world have been working to create plastic-producing microbes that could replace the petroleum-based plastics industry. Now, researchers from Korea have overcome a major hurdle: getting bacteria to produce polymers that contain ring-like structures, which make the plastics more rigid and thermally stable. Because these molecules are usually toxic to microorganisms, the researchers had to construct a novel metabolic pathway that would enable the E. coli bacteria to both produce and tolerate the accumulation of the polymer and the building blocks it is composed of. The resulting polymer is biodegradable and has physical properties that could lend it to biomedical applications such as drug delivery, though more research is needed. The results are presented August 21 in the Cell Press journal Trends in Biotechnology, which now publishes original research in addition to review articles.

“I think biomanufacturing will be a key to the success of mitigating climate change and the global plastic crisis,” says senior author Sang Yup Lee (@mbelmbel99), a chemical and biomolecular engineer at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. “We need to collaborate internationally to promote bio-based manufacturing so that we can ensure a better environment for our future.”

Most plastics that are used for packaging and industrial purposes contain ring-like “aromatic” structures—for example, PET and polystyrene. Previous studies have managed to create microbes that can produce polymers made up of alternating aromatic and aliphatic (non-ring-like) monomers, but this is the first time that microbes have produced polymers made up entirely of monomers with aromatic sidechains.

To do this, the researchers first constructed a novel metabolic pathway by recombining enzymes from other microorganisms that enabled the bacteria to produce an aromatic monomer called phenyllactate. Then, they used computer-simulations to engineer a polymerase enzyme that could efficiently assemble these phenyllactate building blocks into a polymer.

“This enzyme can synthesize the polymer more efficiently than any of the enzymes available in nature,” says Lee.

After optimizing the bacteria’s metabolic pathway and the polymerase enzyme, the researchers grew the microbes in 6.6 L (1.7 gallon) fermentation vats. The final strain was capable of producing 12.3 g/L of the polymer (poly(D phenyllactate)). To commercialize the product, the researchers want to increase the yield to at least 100 g/L.

“Based on its properties, we think that this polymer should be suitable for drug delivery in particular,” says Lee. “It’s not quite as strong as a PET, mainly because of the lower molecular weight.”

In future, the researchers plan to develop additional types of aromatic monomers and polymers with various chemical and physical properties—for example, polymers with the higher molecular weights required for industrial applications. They’re also working to further optimize their method so that it can be scaled up.

“If we put more effort into increasing the yield, then this method might be able to be commercialized at a larger scale,” says Lee. “We’re working to improve the efficiency of our production process as well as the recovery process, so that we can economically purify the polymers we produce.”

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This research was supported by the National Research Foundation, the Korean Ministry of Science, and ICT.

Trends in Biotechnology, Lee and Kang et al., “Microbial Production of an Aromatic Homo-Polyester” https://cell.com/trends/biotechnology/fulltext/S0167-7799(24)00148-3

Trends in Biotechnology (@TrendsinBiotech) is a multi-disciplinary Cell Press journal publishing original research and reviews on exciting developments in biotechnology, with the option to publish open access. This journal is a leading global platform for discussion of significant and transformative concepts across applied life sciences that examine bio-based solutions to real-world problems. Trends in Biotechnology provides cutting-edge research that breaks new ground and reviews that provide insights into the future direction of the field, giving the reader a novel point of view. Visit https://www.cell.com/trends/biotechnology. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.