This $255,840 National Science Foundation SBIR Phase I Project Grant to Birch Biosciences LLC supports the development of enzymes to accelerate plastic recycling. The NSF Division of Industrial Innovation awarded this grant under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to enable more efficient, profitable, and sustainable plastic recycling. Specifically, Birch Biosciences will apply synthetic biology and related technologies to identify, engineer, and optimize new enzymes and enzyme cocktails to...
This $600,000 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) funds research by the University of Michigan to develop a simulation-driven framework for modeling the biodegradation of plastic materials. The key products and services to be delivered include: Creation of a simulation-based kernel to guide the design of biodegradable materials and advance understanding of structure-property-performance relationships for plastic degradation driven by...
This $195,000 Federal Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports research by the University of Colorado to accelerate the development of sustainable bioplastics. The key objectives are to use high-throughput data capture, multiscale modeling, and machine learning to better understand the molecular and chemical mechanisms controlling the transformation of biomatter into thermoformable bioplastics. This knowledge will enable...
This $1,000,000 federal Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop low-energy strategies for sustainable recycling of plastics. The project aims to integrate polymer degradation with microbial bioenergy production to achieve critical materials recycling and net-zero energy goals. Specifically, the research team will engineer enzymes to enable polymer...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems Project Grant for $331,415, awarded on September 1, 2023, aims to develop a novel biocatalytic process for the deconstruction of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics. The project will explore the use of natural enzymes, such as lipase, to catalyze the alcoholysis of PET in non-aqueous solvents. This approach seeks to improve the efficiency and conversion of plastic waste using...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) has awarded a $463,136 Project Grant to the University of Massachusetts Lowell to explore a hybrid approach to upcycling waste polyethylene (PE) into value-added chemicals. The two-step process involves oxidative catalytic pyrolysis to decompose PE into intermediate products, followed by bioconversion using engineered yeast to produce nylon precursors and other platform chemicals. The research aims to develop an economical...
This $433,097 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports the development of a novel microorganism, Erwinia aphidicola LJJL01, capable of efficiently deconstructing mixed plastic waste, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyurethane (PU), and polycarbonate (PC), into their basic building blocks or monomers. The project aims to elucidate the organism's capabilities and engineering it to produce valuable chemicals from the...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant, awarded under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), will fund research to develop a novel biocatalytic process for deconstructing and recycling polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics. The $378,682 award to the University of Colorado aims to explore the use of natural enzymes, such as lipases, to break down PET in nonaqueous solvents rather than water, which can improve the efficiency and conversion of plastic waste. The research will...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $2 million project grant under the Engineering (47.041) federal grant program to the University of California, Berkeley on September 1, 2021 for work completing August 31, 2025. The grant funds research to develop enzyme-embedded plastics with improved biodegradability by rationally designing enzyme-containing polymers. UC Berkeley will analyze plastic degradation byproducts and toxicity, with chemical analysis conducted at their facilities. The...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $330,000 Project Grant under the Engineering (CFDA 47.041) program to the Regents of the University of Michigan to conduct collaborative research on engineering catalyst selectivity for the deconstruction and re-synthesis of biomass and waste plastic feedstocks. The research aims to develop a fundamental understanding of how tuning catalyst architecture can enable selective cleavage of carbon-oxygen bonds in multifunctional organic molecules...