Iowa State University has been awarded a grant by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop biorenewable and biodegradable containers for the specialty crop industry. The $1.9 million grant will be used to develop bioplastic containers as an alternative to petroleum-based pots. Bill Graves, professor of horticulture, will lead the research team that includes David …Continue reading “USDA awards Iowa State grant to develop biorenewable plant containers”
Iowa State University announced a new gift commitment from Sukup Manufacturing Company at the September 30 groundbreaking for the second phase of the Biorenewables Complex.Sukup Manufacturing Company’s gift commitment builds on the firm’s initial financial support provided in 2007, and completes the private gift portion of the total project. One of the new buildings in …Continue reading “Sukup Manufacturing’s gift commitment to help complete Biorenewables Complex”
AMES, Iowa — The groundbreaking ceremony for phase two of Iowa State University’s Biorenewables Complex will be held Friday, Sept. 30, at 3:30 p.m. Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad will be the featured speaker at the groundbreaking ceremony for Virgil B. Elings Hall and the Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering (ABE) Building #2. The ceremony will be …Continue reading “Groundbreaking ceremony for phase two of ABE building has been set”
The NSF/Live Science website features Professor Kessler and his group’s work with biorenewable plastics and self-healing composites. It also includes an interview with Professor Kessler with responses to questions such as: What inspired you to choose this field of study? What is the best piece of advice you ever received? What was your first scientific …Continue reading “Professor Mike Kessler interviewed on ScienceLives”
A mechanical engineering graduate student is bringing the Latin word renovo to life on Iowa State’s campus. Translated to English, renovo means to repair or restore, and it’s the underlying concept of Andrew Friend’s company Renovo Fuel Technologies. The company is based on Friend’s thesis research in renewable fuel. “We are hoping to market an …Continue reading “ME graduate student launches new company”
Laura Jarboe pointed to a collection of test tubes in her Iowa State University laboratory. Some of the tubes looked like they were holding very weak coffee. That meant microorganisms – in this case, Shewanella bacteria – were growing and biochemically converting sugars into hydrocarbons, said Jarboe, an Iowa State assistant professor of chemical and …Continue reading “Iowa State hybrid lab combines technologies to make biorenewable fuels and products”
Prototypes of the biofuels refinery of the future sit in a 19,000-square-foot complex on the Iowa State Research Farm west of Ames. Two experimental plants, whose network of pipes and containers looks to the lay person like a microbrewery on steroids, produce oil from biomass such as corn stover, switchgrass, miscanthus, wood chips and algae.
David Grewell flipped on the augers that carry corn from a truck to a biorefinery. Then, with a few more clicks of his computer mouse, he turned on the pumps that send grain all the way through an ethanol plant, from storage to hammer mill to slurry tanks to jet cooker to liquefaction, fermentation, distillation, …Continue reading “Learn to run a biorefinery in a virtual control room developed by Iowa State researchers”
Helping shift the United States to an agricultural-based economy has taken a life of its own at Iowa State University Extension’s Center for Industrial Research and Service (CIRAS). Since 2002, students, faculty, and staff have been working to develop the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) BioPreferred program, which was implemented to promote the increased purchase and use of biobased products.
Some Iowa State University students are serious about getting their campus community “on the bus” when it comes to green living. And they hope to pick up some other Ames residents along the way. That’s at least the plan, according to David Correll, a Ph.D. student in Iowa State’s College of Business and co-founder and …Continue reading “Students to process waste vegetable oil from ISU Dining to fuel CyRide bus”
Michael Kessler has worked with polymers that repair themselves when they crack. And he’s worked with polymers made from vegetable oils. Now he’s working to combine the two technologies. Kessler, an Iowa State University associate professor of materials science and engineering and an associate of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory, is researching and …Continue reading “MSE researcher developing self-healing, bio-based polymers”
At the Biorenewable Research Farm, many projects are underway that deal with conversion or transportation of biofuels. One project deals with using corn stover transported from fields and harvesting, and converting it into types of bioproducts. The project is led by Matthew Darr, assistant professor of agriculture and biosystems engineering, and Stuart Birrel, associate professor …Continue reading “Corn stover converted into bioproducts at research farm”
Dedication ceremonies for Iowa State University’s new Biorenewables Research Laboratory (BRL) building will be held Friday, Sept. 17, at 3 p.m. The new facility is a visible “front door” to the university’s many diverse and broad-reaching programs in biorenewables and is located on the west side of campus between the College of Design and Howe …Continue reading “Dedication set for Phase One of Iowa State University’s Biorenewables Complex”
The successful pursuit of polymer research along two separate lines brought Associate Professor Michael Kessler to a simple yet unexpected confluence of ideas that raised a straightforward question: Why not combine them? His proposal to do so has earned the materials science and engineering researcher a $400,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award for a …Continue reading “Kessler’s CAREER award combines quests for self-healing, biorenewable polymers”
The Biorenewables Research Laboratory officially opened earlier this month on the west side of campus amid the other engineering buildings. Read the Des Moines Business Record story about the lab.
