Such process intensification could boost manufacturing productivity while cutting costs and reducing waste. That could save the chemical industry more than $9 billion annually, according to the US Department of Energy’s announcement of the institute.

The new institute will be known as RAPID, the Rapid Advancement in Process Intensification Deployment Institute. The American Institute of Chemical Engineers in New York City will lead the effort, which was developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina and the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

Iowa State researchers are managing the project’s biorefinery efforts because they are “an extremely talented and well-known team that’s highly regarded in the industry,” said Karen Fletcher, RAPID’s chief executive officer, speaking during a recent tour of Iowa State’s BioCentury Research Farm.

In addition, she said the Iowa State team has already pulled in multiple partners willing to help commercialize distributed biorefineries.

The proposal that won the Department of Energy’s approval includes $8 million to support development and testing of biorefineries that that feature modular design and construction for ease of manufacturing and mass production. Two possible projects highlighted in the application include:

• Pyrolysis-based Modular Energy Production Systems for conversion of wastes and biomass into fuels, chemicals and other products, with $3.2 million from the energy department and additional support from Easy Energy Systems of Emmetsburg; the State of Iowa; Stine Seed Co. of Adel; and the Iowa Energy Center. Pyrolysis as traditionally practiced involves quickly heating biomass without oxygen to produce a biochar for fertilizer and a liquid bio-oil for energy. Iowa State researchers have improved the process by adding a small amount of air to the reaction, partially burning some of the biomass as a source of heat for the reactor. The so-called autothermal process increases the rate that biomass can be converted to products, allowing construction of smaller and simpler reactors suitable for modular systems.

  The new process produces sugars that can be fermented to biofuels and a solid fuel suitable as a coal substitute. The big idea is to develop small, efficient biorefineries that can process local biomass, saving the cost and trouble of transporting and storing biomass from a larger region.

• Anaerobic digestion of grassy biomass and wet wastes to convert waste biomass into carbon-neutral fuels and chemicals, with $4 million from the energy department and additional support from Earth Energy Renewables of Bryan, Texas; Roeslein Alternative Energy of St. Louis; the State of Iowa; the Iowa Energy Center; and Iowa State. The project will build on technology developed by Mark Holtzapple of Texas A&M University to efficiently ferment biomass for production of carboxylic acids.

  The acids can be converted into valuable industrial chemicals and fuels, all the way up to gasoline.

Brown said both projects and the dollars associated with them are still subject to final contract negotiations between the Department of Energy and the leaders of RAPID. But he says they’re good candidates to move ahead.