Dr. Gregg Beckham from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) presents a technical seminar on his work in this special CBE seminar.
Title: Lignin conversion to performance-advantaged fuels, chemicals, and polymers
Abstract: Terrestrial plants harbor renewable carbon resources in their cell walls that can directly contribute to decarbonization of the transportation and materials sectors, but the heterogeneous, aromatic lignin polymer found in plants has long obstructed both natural- and humankind-driven endeavors to deconstruct plant biomass to valuable products. However, viable methods to valorize lignin are essential to ultimately enable second-generation biorefining, given that lignin can comprise up to 40% of the carbon in lignocellulose, but today it is merely burned for low-value heat and power. To this end, this talk will cover our efforts (with many collaborators) to separate the lignin polymer from the plant cell wall and use both chemical and biological catalysis to convert it into molecules and polymers that are either drop-in replacements for products sourced from fossil carbon today or that exhibit performance-advantaged properties relative to petrochemical incumbents. Specifically, we are focused on catalytic oxidation to depolymerize lignin into bio-available intermediates coupled to metabolic engineering approaches that convert mixtures of aromatic compounds to single products, which can find use in performance-advantaged biopolymers. In parallel, we are also developing and scaling methods to remove lignin from the cell wall through reductive catalysis and to selectively conduct hydrodeoxygenation to produce sustainable aviation fuel blendstocks.
Gregg Beckham
Group Leader and Senior Research Fellow
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
Gregg T. Beckham is a Group Leader and Senior Research Fellow at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering at MIT in 2007. He currently leads and works with an interdisciplinary team of biologists, chemists, and engineers at NREL on conversion of biomass to fuels, plastics upcycling, chemicals and materials included in metabolic engineering, catalysts, fermentation, separations, biopolymer and carbon fiber production, theory and simulation to design biological and chemical catalysts, and lignin and waste valorization.