Spring Workshop Engages Diverse Stakeholders in Shaping the Future of Biorefining and the Bioeconomy
Mar 28, 2024 — Atlanta, GA
With the nation’s goals to net zero well underway and the world moving toward sustainable production methods, biorefineries play a crucial role in our transition to a greener future. These multifaceted facilities convert biomass into biofuels, biochemicals, and bioproducts; foster a circular economy; and reduce reliance on fossil fuels while promoting environmentally friendly industrial practices.
The Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI) at Georgia Tech recently hosted a workshop on the Emerging Bioeconomy and the Future of Biorefining. The event cultivated new partnerships as more than 75 attendees from academia, national laboratories, and industry shared and learned about the cutting-edge developments in the emerging field.
Carson Meredith, executive director of RBI, said, “The workshop provided an immersive experience for the attendees with access to knowledge, opportunities to network, and a platform for collaboration to positively impact their understanding and involvement in this rapidly evolving field. I saw a lot of human connections being made, a lot of people shaking hands, and having conversations off to the side. That’s exactly why we hold such workshops — to exchange ideas within the Institute as well as between researchers in universities, industry, and national labs.”
The program started with a keynote by B. Frank Gupton, professor of chemical and life science engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University, on creating resilient national supply chains for essential medicines and the need for waste reduction through process chemistry improvements to reduce the carbon footprint in the pharmaceutical industry.
Various presentations from RBI’s research faculty demonstrated the depth of research in the field of bioeconomy and biorefineries. Topics included integrated biorefining processes by multicomponent separations and catalytic conversion, lignin-derived phenol as the new platform of biorefineries, catalytic conversion of organic acids, data-driven biorefinery process control, hot topics in lifecycle assessment, and more.
A highlight of the annual workshop was the student poster session that showcased the diversity of research happening in the renewable bioproducts field. Over 25 RBI Fellows, spanning chemical and biomolecular engineering, mechanical engineering, materials science and engineering, civil and environmental engineering, and chemistry and biochemistry presented their research to a highly engaged audience.
Andreas Villegas, president of the Georgia Forestry Association and the dinner keynote speaker, addressed the need for educating the community about working forests and their potential to create carbon-neutral products and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Working forests in the state of Georgia are managed with a growth-over-harvest-rate of 50% and are a natural solution to the major challenges in sustainable forests and communities.
Blake Simmons, keynote speaker from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, discussed the importance of intellectual property models and licensing technology models that will allow companies to access new processes emerging in the field.
Mi Li, assistant professor of biorefinery and sustainable materials from the University of Tennessee, presented his research on the modification of plant cell walls, while Bronson P. Bollock, professor of forest biometrics and quantitative timber management at the University of Georgia, presented the current issues and factors in the quantification of forest biomass feedstocks.
Kim Nelson, the chief technology officer of GranBio, addressed the opportunities and challenges in meeting the global demand for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and low-carbon bioproducts. Nelson presented GranBio’s patented AVAP technology that uses woody biomass to produce SAF, renewable diesel, electricity, and other byproducts like BioPlus nanocellulose for tires in the process.
“At this moment, there is a tremendous federal, state, and industrial focus on developing the U.S. bioeconomy,” Meredith said. “RBI's vision is that pulp producers and users of wood extractives and byproducts have an opportunity to develop higher margin products from woody biomass residues, including plastics, pharmaceuticals, and fuels, without disrupting current paper and lumber markets. Traditional petrochemical producers of these products have an opportunity to substitute more carbon-neutral sources as feedstocks. Our workshop sought a conversation around the opportunities and challenges from feedstock to the marketplace.
Priya Devarajan || RBI Communications Program Manager
Photo Credit: Leah Yetter, Photographer
Two-Way Cell-based Treatment Repairs Muscle After Rotator Cuff Injury
Mar 26, 2024 —
A team of Georgia Tech researchers has introduced a new therapeutic system to offset the poor clinical outcomes often associated with common rotator cuff surgery.
It’s the kind of surgery that makes headlines whenever a famous athlete is sidelined with a torn rotator cuff. Major League Baseball All-Star pitchers Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander, for example, both had rotator cuff surgeries and made successful comebacks.
For those of us who can’t throw baseballs 95 miles an hour, the rotator cuff may tear over time from repeated overhead motions (painters and carpenters, for instance). Or an injury can occur as we age and our body’s tissues naturally degenerate. And although rotator cuff injuries are common, they can be serious, leading to muscle degeneration after surgery.
Now, two professors from the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, a joint department of Georgia Tech and Emory University, have addressed the problem with a novel cell-based dual treatment, which they describe in a study published recently in the journal Tissue Engineering.
“We’re thinking mainly of an aging population with this study — the people most likely to have these injuries,” said Johnna Temenoff, whose research group collaborated with the lab of Ed Botchwey on this work. “The great thing about this system is, it isn’t specific to a particular population. These are cells we all have, and this treatment system might work even better in younger patients.”
Local Delivery
The rotator cuff is a group of muscles and tendons surrounding and protecting the shoulder joint, keeping the head of the upper arm bone firmly in the shallow socket of the shoulder. It’s tight jumble of tissues, and not an easy environment for muscle regeneration.
“With a rotator cuff injury, you’re actually tearing the tendon,” said Temenoff, director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT) at Georgia Tech. “And that causes the muscle to atrophy.”
While pro athletes have access to world-class training and rehabilitation to help rebuild the shoulder following surgery, for many patients that rotator cuff muscle doesn’t fully regenerate, even after a successful surgery. Temenoff isn’t sure why.
“That’s a big unknown,” she said. “And it’s a big field of study right now, an active area of research. There is a need for regenerative therapies that can be used in conjunction with rotator cuff restoration surgery, as a long-term treatment option —that is what we are addressing.”
In previous studies using mouse models, Temenoff found that she could change the cellular environment in the muscle with the local injection of microparticles loaded with a protein called stromal cell-derived factor (SDF), which can attract various pre-regenerative cells circulating to the muscle.
The Push-Pull Effect
The idea is to mobilize the cells that can heal, the cells that rebuild muscle at the source. Getting enough of them to do the work is the trick.
Temenoff’s lab has developed microparticles that use heparin, a natural sugar-based molecule found in the body that has a high negative charge. SDF is positive-charged, so that electrostatic interaction between the two particles allows for controlled release of SDF over time.
SDF interacts almost magnetically with a receptor on pro-regenerative cells in bone marrow or circulation to “call” them to a certain location. However, older people may not have enough of these cells in circulation to make much of a difference in healing. That’s where Botchwey’s lab entered with the major assist.
His team provided experience with a bone marrow mobilizing agent (called VPC01091) that can send healing cells into circulation around the body. In clinical settings, bone marrow mobilizing agents are used to “push” stem cells out of the marrow and into the blood. These cells can regenerate and differentiate into all kinds of cells in multiple tissue environments.
The researchers set out to develop a single therapeutic option by combining the two technologies. Here's what happened when they tested the system in rats: The mobilizing agent was injected systemically while the SDF was injected locally into the shoulder. So, while the mobilizing agent “pushed” pro-healing cells into circulation, SDF’s magnetic effect “pulled” them to the injury site, resulting in the desired regenerative effects.
The researchers found different levels of regeneration spatially—in other words, where they applied the local injection really matters. Further research will aim to fine-tune the process, so clinicians can recruit healing cells to even more specific areas of the damaged muscle. Temenoff and her collaborators believe they are onto something that will result in better muscle regeneration, with potential applications beyond the rotator cuff.
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grant no. R01AR071026).
CITATION: Leah Anderson, Liane Tellier, Keshav Shah, Joseph Pearson, Alexandra Brimeyer, Ed Botchwey, Johnna Temenoff. “Bone Marrow Mobilization and Local Stromal Cell-Derived Factor-1a Delivery Enhances Nascent Supraspinatus Muscle Fiber Growth,” Tissue Engineering.
Growing Bacteria in Space with Astronauts
Mar 25, 2024 —
This story by Kelsey Gulledge first appeared in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering newsroom. See the full feature here.
Georgia Tech researchers are teaming up with NASA to study bacteria on the International Space Station to help define how scientists and healthcare professionals combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria for long-duration space missions.
In the Planetary eXploration Lab (PXL), researchers will work with astronauts living on the International Space Station as they collect air, water, and surface samples. Using testing methods created on campus, the astronauts and scientists will watch microbes grow to learn which bacteria are resistant to specific antibiotics.
The work is part of NASA’s Genomic Enumeration of Antibiotic Resistance in Space (GEARS) study, led by Aaron Burton and Sarah Wallace from NASA Johnson Space Center. Marking SpaceX’s 30th Commercial Resupply Services mission for NASA, the GEARS research is on board a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft, scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida on March 21. If all goes according to plan, the Dragon capsule will reach the International Space Station on the morning of March 23.
“Our lab has previously studied bacteria colonies from the International Space Station and found Enterococcus faecalis (EF) was resistant to many antibiotics,” said Christopher E. Carr, director of the PXL and assistant professor in the School of Aerospace Engineering (AE) and the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (EAS). “This particular bacteria species is a core member of the human gut and has evolved over the past 400 million years, making it a difficult pathogen to treat in humans and on surfaces.”
EF is the second leading cause of hospital-acquired infections after Staphylococci. Much like hospital environments, on the International Space Station is built in such a way that studying antibiotic-resistant microbes there could provide insight into how these organisms survive, adapt, and evolve in space and on Earth.
The 30-day GEARS mission will supplement the routine microbial surveillance testing conducted on the International Space Station with an antibiotic-resistant screening step. Astronauts onboard will collect samples and observe what microbes grow on their pre-treated contact slides, a rectangular-shaped petri dish.
The contact slides contain antibiotic-infused agar, a gel-like fuel source for bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms. Therefore, anything that grows on the slides will be identified as antibiotic-resistant to that particular antibiotic. Astronauts will then use a pipet to carefully extract DNA from a bacterial colony and sequence it using the Oxford Nanopore Technologies MinION, nanopore sequencing device, which will identify the microbe that is present, as well as sequence its entire genome in real-time. “If we found a new organism that we’ve never seen before, we’d be able to detect it, sequence its entire genome, and determine how it might be resistant to different types of antibiotics,” said Carr.
This new technology will allow humans to travel further - and longer - into space without having to send data back to Earth for processing. “For the purposes of this study and to maximize the science yield, these bacteria will travel back to Earth,” said Jordan McKaig, PXL researcher and Ph.D. candidate in the EAS. “Then we can study them more extensively to better reveal their genomic features, how they are adapting to the built environment, and understand the risks – if any -- they may pose to astronauts.”
Scientists and researchers at NASA Johnson will use this information to figure out what may make astronauts sick in space, how to optimize their health, and make plans for potential counter measures and treatments. This data is critical because astronauts’ immune systems often become compromised due to space flight conditions. The GEARS mission will launch a total of four times over the next year to study the bacteria and data thoroughly. The second mission is expected to launch later this summer.
“I’m really looking forward to hopefully traveling to the launch and getting to see the science that we’ve been working on for a couple of years go to space. It’s really a dream come true,” said McKaig.
While GEARS is in orbit, Carr and the PXL team will prepare for their next study, EnteroGAIT, which will investigate thousands of mutants simultaneously to see what genes are involved in adapting to the space environment. It is currently in the science verification testing phase.
Kelsey Gulledge
Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering
Georgia Tech
Cosmic Curiosity: Georgia Tech Hosts Science and Engineering Day to Open Atlanta Science Festival
Mar 21, 2024 — Atlanta
Georgia Tech opened the 11th annual Atlanta Science Festival (ASF) with record attendance for Science and Engineering Day. Despite the drizzly weather, about 4,000 people of all ages from throughout metro Atlanta — more than double the number of attendees in 2023 — visited campus on Saturday, March 9, 2024, for the space-themed event. They explored more than 45 exhibitions and hands-on activities related to art, robotics, nanotechnology, chemical and systems engineering, and biology, as well as other STEAM areas.
Visitors began their investigations at “Earth” (the Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design), where they picked up a galactic passport specially designed to guide them from building to building — each designated with the name of a planet — and the demonstrations housed within.
At “Mars” (Marcus Nanotechnology Building), attendees measured their height in nanometers, experimented with fruit batteries, and took a window-tour of the largest cleanroom in the Southeast, where semiconductors are developed. Inside “Venus” (Parker H. Petit Biotech Building), budding scientists examined bioluminescent bacteria under a microscope and made Play-Doh models of the human brain. When visiting “Saturn” (Ford Environmental Sciences and Technology Building), visitors studied density by making DIY lava lamps and inspected human brain specimens the way a pathologist would.
“Getting to hold a human brain was cool,” said a 12-year-old participant from Alpharetta. “And I also liked comparing it to the brains of a pig and a mouse.”
Other activities included math games and puzzles, the opportunity to build an artificial hand and a gallery display of research-inspired artwork. Georgia Tech faculty, students, and staff hosted all the demonstrations and served as volunteers who helped Science and Engineering Day guests navigate campus and the demonstration sites.
For many participants, the undoubted highlight was the chance to hear a presentation by former NASA astronaut and Georgia Tech alumnus Shane Kimbrough, MS OR 1998. Kimbrough spent 388 days in space over three missions and served as commander of the International Space Station (ISS) in 2016. He captivated the standing-room-only crowd with photos and descriptions of his time living and working aboard the ISS and answered questions from the kids in the audience.
“It’s really exciting to see all the activities around campus today … we’re inspiring the next generation of scientists and explorers for our country,” Kimbrough said afterward.
The event was a resounding success for Georgia Tech and the Atlanta Science Fair.
Lauren Overton-Kirk, who organized the event for the Institute, said, "Georgia Tech Science and Engineering Day 2024 was so wonderful to share with the community. What started years ago as a day for young scientific exploration became an all-ages, space-themed scientific spectacular. You could feel the passion for learning fill the campus in a way only Georgia Tech could do.”
Both the Georgia Tech and the Atlanta Science Festival teams are looking forward to next year’s Science and Engineering Day.
“As one of the founding organizations of the Atlanta Science Festival, Georgia Tech has been deeply invested in sharing the Institute’s innovations with the community,” said Meisa Salaita, ASF co-director. “And that investment was deeply evident on March 9th as they opened their doors to kick off the 11th annual Science Festival. Their students and faculty came out with enthusiasm to showcase science to the public. We couldn't be more thrilled with this partnership — and the many ways Tech has helped us show our community that Atlanta is a science city.”
Shelley Wunder-Smith, Institute Communications
Universal Controller Could Push Robotic Prostheses, Exoskeletons Into Real-World Use
Mar 20, 2024 —
Robotic exoskeletons designed to help humans with walking or physically demanding work have been the stuff of sci-fi lore for decades. Remember Ellen Ripley in that Power Loader in Alien? Or the crazy mobile platform George McFly wore in 2015 in Back to the Future, Part II because he threw his back out?
Researchers are working on real-life robotic assistance that could protect workers from painful injuries and help stroke patients regain their mobility. So far, they have required extensive calibration and context-specific tuning, which keeps them largely limited to research labs.
Mechanical engineers at Georgia Tech may be on the verge of changing that, allowing exoskeleton technology to be deployed in homes, workplaces, and more.
A team of researchers in Aaron Young’s lab have developed a universal approach to controlling robotic exoskeletons that requires no training, no calibration, and no adjustments to complicated algorithms. Instead, users can don the “exo” and go.
Their system uses a kind of artificial intelligence called deep learning to autonomously adjust how the exoskeleton provides assistance, and they’ve shown it works seamlessly to support walking, standing, and climbing stairs or ramps. They described their “unified control framework” March 20 in Science Robotics.
“The goal was not just to provide control across different activities, but to create a single unified system. You don't have to press buttons to switch between modes or have some classifier algorithm that tries to predict that you're climbing stairs or walking,” said Young, associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.
Joshua Stewart
College of Engineering
Physicist Rick Trebino Awarded Optica R.W. Wood Prize
Mar 15, 2024 —
School of Physics Professor Rick Trebino has received the 2024 R.W. Wood Prize in recognition of his invention and development of techniques for the complete and rigorous measurement of ultrashort laser pulses. The R.W. Wood Prize is presented by Optica, (formerly OSA), Advancing Optics and Photonics Worldwide, in recognition of an outstanding discovery, scientific, or technical achievement or invention in the field of optics.
”I’m ecstatic to receive this recognition from Optica,” said Trebino, who serves as the Eminent Scholar Chair of Ultrafast Optical Physics in the School of Physics at Georgia Tech. “The vast majority of science’s greatest discoveries have resulted directly from more powerful techniques for measuring light, so I decided to devote my career to this important field, and it’s very satisfying to receive this honor for my work."
Ultrashort pulses are brief bursts of light, millionths of billionths of a second long — the shortest technological events ever created. Trebino’s techniques for measuring them have made possible a host of new research and technology applications in many areas, including the fundamental studies of matter and micro-material processing.
Trebino has pioneered ultrashort-pulse measurement techniques for over three decades. In 1991, he invented the frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) technique, the first method for completely measuring arbitrary ultrashort light pulses in time. It took pulse measurement from blurry black-and-white artifact-ridden snapshots to high-resolution full-color images. The FROG technique remains the gold standard in ultrashort pulse measurement and is used worldwide in physics, chemistry, engineering, biomedical, and telecommunications applications.
More recently, Trebino has developed devices for measuring pulses with ever shorter and ever more complex temporal — and also spatial — variations. Thanks in large part to Trebino’s techniques, these exotic light pulses have become much better understood and hence much shorter, more stable, and much more useful. His devices have also played key roles in work resulting in several recent Nobel Prizes.
Rick Trebino received his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University and joined Georgia Tech in 1998 after having worked at Sandia National Laboratories. He has received numerous other awards and is a Fellow of four international scientific societies, including Optica, the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and SPIE: the international society for optics and photonics.
Learn more about Trebino’s Ultrafast Optics Research Group here: frog.gatech.edu
About Optica
Optica (formerly OSA), Advancing Optics and Photonics Worldwide, is the society dedicated to promoting the generation, application, archiving, and dissemination of knowledge in the field. Founded in 1916, it is the leading organization for scientists, engineers, business professionals, students, and others interested in the science of light. Optica’s renowned publications, meetings, online resources, and in-person activities fuel discoveries, shape real-life applications, and accelerate scientific, technical, and educational achievement.
Writer: Lindsay C. Vidal
Assistant Communications
Director College of Sciences
Georgia AIM welcomes new managing director for industry partnerships
Mar 15, 2024 —
A new member of the Georgia Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing (Georgia AIM) leadership team will serve as a key connector between industry and Georgia AIM innovations and workforce development programs.
Steven Ferguson, who begins March 16 as a principal research scientist with the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute, comes to Georgia AIM from the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG). In his previous role, Ferguson served as chief information officer, where he led information technology, research, innovation, and data enterprises across Georgia’s technical colleges.
Now, Ferguson will leverage his experience working in technical education and workforce development to connect with Georgia companies. In this new role, he will also be the executive director of the Georgia Tech Manufacturing 4.0 Consortium. This new collaborative within Georgia AIM gives manufacturers exclusive access to emerging technologies at Georgia Tech’s Advanced Manufacturing Pilot Facility.
“I’m excited to join the team at Georgia Tech as I will get to work extremely close with both manufacturers and the research community,” said Ferguson. “For years, I’ve helped translate knowledge gained through research into hands-on training for the workforce. Now, I get to dedicate my time to that — I’m committed to working hand-in-hand to bridge the knowledge gap and get cutting-edge technology to Georgia’s manufacturers.”
Ferguson said one of his passions is serving the incumbent workforce — specifically, employees who have significant on-the-job experience. This will be key in his new role with the Manufacturing 4.0 Consortium, Ferguson said, as he can work closely with manufacturers to better understand their current and future workforce needs.
Addressing gaps in the workforce is also a main goal for Georgia AIM, which is working to connect artificial intelligence to manufacturers across the state. Automation, collaborative robots, sensors, and data collection are all part of smart technologies revolutionizing manufacturing. But a trained workforce is essential in order to implement these changes.
After a long and successful career with TCSG, Ferguson said he is eager to tackle the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead with Georgia AIM.
“To truly integrate AI technology into manufacturing, we need to ensure that the incumbent workforce is not just familiar but comfortable with these advancements,” he said. “While manufacturing inherently focuses on production, our aim is to make technology a fundamental aspect of this sector’s growth and evolution.”
Video Illustrates Interactive Tech Created to Help Understand Dolphin Communication
Mar 14, 2024 —
Computers and dolphins don’t typically occupy the same space. However, Georgia Tech researchers and marine biologists from the Wild Dolphin Project have been swimming with the two for more than a decade.
The Wild Dolphin Project is the world’s longest-running underwater dolphin research project, and this week, the organization is celebrating its 40th anniversary.
Georgia Tech is marking the occasion with a fun and engaging video illustrating the interactive computing technology its researchers have created to help marine biologists studying dolphin behavior and communication in the open ocean.
Referred to as the “Jane Goodall of the sea” by National Geographic, Denise Herzing is the founder and research director of the Wild Dolphin Project. She and Georgia Tech College of Computing Professor Thad Starner began collaborating in 2011 on interactive technologies to aid the project’s study of a specific pod of Atlantic spotted dolphins.
The initial CHAT (cetacean hearing augmented telemetry) device developed by Starner’s Contextual Computing Group was a large chest-worn submersible computer that produced and recorded sounds underwater. Fast forward to today and CHAT is now two smaller units that fit on the chest and wrist.
CHAT works by having two marine biologists wear both units while swimming with the dolphins. The wrist device emits dolphin-like whistle sounds, while the chest device includes a hydrophone to detect and record sounds. The researchers made up the sounds to designate items they handle while in the water.
The Georgia Tech video features an animated example of marine biologists passing a red scarf back and forth while triggering the designated sound for the scarf.
“The hope is that the dolphins watching all of this can figure out the social context and repeat that sound to ask for the scarf,” said Scott Gilliland, CHAT developer and Georgia Tech senior research scientist.
“If that happens, it means that our dolphins can mimic one word in our tiny, made-up language.”
Gilliland and Starner continue to push CHAT forward to ensure the team captures this breakthrough when it happens. They are now collecting auditory field data to optimize their machine-learning model for identifying dolphin sounds in the open ocean.
Ultimately, they expect CHAT to recognize if a dolphin repeats one of the preset sounds in real-time. The advanced system will notify researchers in the water of this event through bone-conducting headphones paired with CHAT.
“Discoveries in dolphin cognition will serve to further elevate the status of all animals on the planet and help us define our relationship with them,” says Herzing, affiliate assistant professor at Florida Atlantic University.
CHAT is an ongoing collaboration between Herzing and Starner’s Contextual Computing Group. The Wild Dolphin Project is a Florida-based nonprofit research organization.
Ben Snedeker, Communications Mgr.
Georgia Tech College of Computing
albert.snedeker@cc.gatech.edu
Shreyes Melkote Wins Research Engagement Award
Mar 14, 2024 —
Shreyes Melkote, who holds the Morris M. Bryan, Jr. Professorship in Mechanical Engineering in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, was recently honored with the Georgia Institute of Technology’s outstanding achievement in research engagement and outreach award. The annual award is given by Georgia Tech’s Office of the Executive Vice President for Research.
Melkote was nominated for his contributions to building and growing industry partnerships through the Georgia Tech-Boeing University Innovation Program and the Novelis Innovation Hub at Georgia Tech.
“Shreyes has invested considerable time and effort to build enduring professional relationships with these industry partners which has ensured that the partnerships deliver long-term benefits to Georgia Tech faculty and students in their research and educational endeavors while enabling external partners to achieve their current and future technology and workforce development objectives,” said Devesh Ranjan, Eugene C. Gwaltney, Jr. School Chair.
More than 169 graduate students and 81 undergraduate students along with several post-doctoral students, visiting scholars, and research engineers have benefited from industry support in programs led and fostered by Melkote.
Melkote also serves as the associate director for the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI). GTMI is Georgia Tech's interdisciplinary research institute tackling the challenges facing manufacturers and helping to insure future global competitiveness. Recently, Georgia Tech’s advanced manufacturing pilot facility managed by GTMI is supporting a statewide initiative that combines artificial intelligence and manufacturing innovations with transformational workforce and outreach programs called Georgia AIM.
“Shreyes has a passion for initiating collaborative industry and student partnerships that address strategic challenges faced by industry,” said Thomas Kurfess, chief manufacturing officer of the Georgia Institute of Technology and the executive director of GTMI. “He is an important part of Georgia Tech’s advanced manufacturing leadership helping to make the U.S. more globally competitive by engaging our best students and offering them valuable industry insight with world-class companies.”
Walter Rich
Georgia Tech Receives Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Grants
Mar 14, 2024 — Atlanta, GA
In January, Georgia Tech researchers were awarded three grants as a part of the Department of Energy’s Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization multi-topic funding. The awards include 49 high-impact, applied research, development, and pilot-scale technology validation and demonstration projects that will reduce energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions in conjunction with cross-sector industrial decarbonization approaches.
The Georgia Tech funding includes a project, in the topic area of Decarbonizing Forest Products, on innovative refining, paper forming, and drying to eliminate CO2 emissions from paper machines. Funded at $3.1 million, the project is led by Carson Meredith, professor and James Harris Faculty Fellow in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and executive director of the Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI). Collaborators include co-PI Cyrus Aidun, professor of mechanical engineering; Patritsia Stathatou, research scientist at RBI; and Aruna Weerasakura, senior research engineer. External collaborators include Fort Valley State University, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and several RBI member companies.
Meredith’s project focuses on decarbonization in energy-intensive drying, paper forming, and pulping processes and will combine recent deflocculation breakthroughs in fiber refining with low-water, multiphase paper forming. The innovations will facilitate the cost-effective implementation of advanced electrical drying technologies in the paper industry. By taking advantage of the increasing fraction of non-fossil electricity in the U.S., electrified drying, if implemented partially (50%), has the potential to reduce the generation of non-biogenic emissions by over 10 million metric tons of CO2e annually.
"I am excited because the new project will utilize the multiphase forming laboratory that is under construction in the Paper Tricentennial Building, representing the first major expansion in lab space there since the 1990s,” said Meredith.
Valerie Thomas, the Anderson-Interface Chair of Natural Systems and professor of industrial and systems engineering and public policy, is a co-PI in a $1.45 million project titled “Mild Co-Solvent Pulping to Decarbonize the Paper and Forest Products Sector,“ led by the University of California, Riverside.
Thomas’ project, also under the topic area of Decarbonizing Forest Products, aims to enhance Co-solvent Enhanced Lignocellulosic Fractionation (CELF) technology into a more environmentally sustainable alternative to traditional kraft pulping. CELF technology will be applied to optimize the production of dissolving pulp used in the manufacturing of extruded textile fibers and will also produce dissolving lignin as a by-product that can serve as a natural resin binder or a renewable ingredient for producing industrial adhesives and binders. This technology has the potential to reduce carbon intensity by 50 – 75% and operating costs by 10 – 20%.
Tim Lieuwen, David S. Lewis Jr. Chair and professor in aerospace engineering and executive director of the Strategic Energy Institute, along with Vishal Acharya, principal research engineer and Benjamin Emerson, principal research engineer at Georgia Tech is a co-PI in a $3.25 million project titled “Omnivore Combustion System,” led by GTI Energy, an Illinois-based technology company.
Lieuwen’s project, under the topic area of Low-Carbon Fuels Utilization R&D, will design and demonstrate a scaled, adaptable omnivore combustion system (OCS) that can accommodate a continuously varying blend of low-carbon fuels with ultra-low nitrous oxide emissions, including natural gas-hydrogen blends, syngas, and biogas. The project will demonstrate a full-scale OCS for at least 100 hours and will focus on three aspects — improving performance, operation stability and safety, and fuel flexibility — and can potentially be used for industrial furnace applications in high carbon-emitting industries.
“The industrial sector is large in both its significance for our economy and its negative climate impacts, and each of these projects addresses significant challenges for the decarbonization of this critical sector,” Lieuwen said.
The projects are part of DOE’s Technologies for Industrial Emissions Reduction Development (TIEReD) Program, which invests in fundamental science, research, development, and initial pilot-scale demonstrations projects to decarbonize the industrial sector — currently responsible for a third of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Priya Devarajan || Research Programs Communications Manager || RBI || SEI