Team BSEL

Congratulations to Birgitte Ahring It’s a Banner Week! One week each month, the campus flagpole will fly the Cougar banner to salute members of the campus community for outstanding accomplishments. From Feb. 5 to Feb. 12, the banner is raised to recognize Birgitte Ahring, Director of the Center for Bioproducts & Bioenergy and Battelle Distinguished Professor. Dr. Ahring recently received $620,000 for biofuels research from the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the National Advanced Biofuels Consortium, which is led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

01-13-10 NEW NEWS!
WSU Tri-Cities, Pullman scientists receive $1.1 million in federal grants for advanced biofuels research as part of two national consortiums

Background

The Bioproducts, Sciences and Engineering Laboratory (BSEL) opened May 2008 on the Washington State University (WSU) Tri-Cities campus in Richland, Wash.  The $24 million, 57,000-square-foot research and teaching laboratory is a partnership between WSU and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) operated by Battelle.  BSEL features the Biorefinery and the Combinatorial Catalysis research lab, plus a variety of laboratories and classrooms.  The facility establishes the Tri-Cities as a center for world-class bio-based product research and development, creates a magnet for prominent scientists, and helps the Northwest agriculture industry be more competitive.

Relationship between Washington State University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
While PNNL and WSU retain their separate entity, our goal is to work synergistically developing and deploying sustainable biomass-based technologies that reduce our dependence on petroleum imports and improve energy security while reducing green house gas emissions. In my role I work closely with Professor Birgitte Ahring of WSU and am responsible for developing the strategy that directs PNNL’s research on sustainable production of bioproducts and biofuels.

The way PNNL and WSU work together is through joint appointments and joint research projects. We are in the process of establishing the first joint appointments, and have submitted numerous joint proposals to DOE, USDA and NSF and started the first joint project.

An important part of the PNNL-WSU relationship is that the organizations bring complementary strengths which allow a true synergy to be established.  PNNL brings expertise in thermal processing, catalysis and fungal biotechnology. WSU notable expertise includes pretreatment, thermophilic bacteria biotechnology and integration of technologies for second generation ethanol production. In addition we have a relationship with the Prosser USDA station who bring expertise in biomass production.

PNNL Staff and Equipment at BSEL
PNNL currently houses over 50 staff in BSEL. Approximately one dozen of the staff have been hired this last year. Other staff members moved to BSEL from PNNL’s main campus situated approximately one mile North. In addition to moving staff we moved research equipment totaling approximately $9 million.  Approximately $5 million worth of this research equipment was purchased using DOE-EERE funds. An additional $3.3 million of capital equipment is in the process of being purchased now, also using DOE-EERE funds. The capital equipment supports two important research areas: our systems biology efforts which include proteomics and genomic capability; and our catalyst development efforts including state-of-the-art combinatorial high-throughput catalyst development tools designed for bioprocessing. In both of these research areas we leverage the tools at BSEL with the tools at PNNL’s Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), an Office of Science user facility located on the main research campus of PNNL.

Relationships
Strong relationships are a key feature in our BSEL research agenda. In addition to the relationship between PNNL and WSU, PNNL has strong industrial relationships including long-standing R&D partnerships with major bio-products companies (ADM, Cargill, Novozymes, Mead-Westvaco, Weyerhaeuser) and major chemical/energy/technology companies (UOP, Conoco-Phillips, Petronas) to name a few.

Our national laboratory relationships include current projects with National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Joint Genome Institute (JGI). In addition we are developing projects/concepts with Oakridge National laboratory (ORNL), Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

Impacts
Our collective goal at BSEL is to move science to industrial processes in a manner that improves energy security, reduces petroleum imports and decreases the impact of fuels on the environment. PNNL currently has approximately 60 issued and pending patents in the area of biobased processing (30 issued US patents, 19 of which issued in the last six years).  These have resulted in ten commercial licenses and license options.  This work has also resulted in one R&D 100 Award Presidential Green Chemistry Award, and has provided the basis for creation of a new company.

Contacts
Birgitte K. Ahring, Ph.D.               bka@wsu.edu                 509.372.7683
John Holladay, Ph.D.       john.holladay@pnl.gov                 509.375.2025

International Research Star heads
WSU as Director of Bioproducts Center in Tri-Cities

download pdf file of press release

High resolution photo of Dr. Birgitte Kiær Ahring

Media Coverage of BSEL building dedication ceremon

Washington State University Tri-Cities (www.tricity.wsu.edu) is an urban campus along the Columbia River in Richland, Wash. Established in 1989 with upper division and graduate programs, WSU Tri-Cities offers 17 baccalaureate, 14 graduate, and five doctoral degree programs. The campus added freshman and sophomore courses in fall 2007 to become a true four-year public university, extending the WSU land-grant mission of providing affordable, accessible higher education. For more information, call 509-372-7250.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (www.pnl.gov) is a DOE Office of Science national laboratory that solves complex problems in energy, national security and the environment, and advances scientific frontiers in the chemical, biological, materials, environmental and computational sciences. PNNL employs 4,000 staff, has a $750 million annual budget, and has been managed by Ohio-based Battelle since the lab's inception in 1965.