Joint BioEnergy Institute
Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory
Description
The Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Research Center dedicated to developing advanced biofuels—liquid fuels derived from the solar energy stored in plant biomass that can replace gasoline, diesel and jet fuels.
JBEI develops:
- bioenergy crops engineered to have low susceptibility to disease and drought and be readily deconstructed into sugar and aromatic intermediates that can be nearly fully utilized by the engineered biofuel- and bioproduct-producing microorganism an integrated, feedstock agnostic deconstruction process using renewable and biocompatible ionic liquids that liberates a high yield of the sugars and lignin-derived intermediates suitable for biological conversion
- microorganisms engineered with a metabolism to simultaneously utilize the sugars and aromatics resulting from the deconstruction process (and thus match the composition of the engineered plants) and produce a variety of fuels and bioproducts at industrially relevant titers, rates and yields
- new technologies and methods to meet current & future needs in biofuels research by increasing throughput, decreasing reagent use, increasing measurement fidelity and reducing assay time
Capability Bounds
Bench scale to early scale-up across the spectrum from feedstock to product, including development of bioenergy feedstocks and transitioning from lab to trials.
Unique Aspects
Plant systems and synthetic biology; feedstock agnostic deconstruction methods; microbial host engineering and pathway development; high-throughput biochemistry; microfluidics; synthetic biology informatics; structural biology; agronomy; TEA/LCA.
Availability
Available to public and private entities through a variety of contracting mechanisms.
Benefit
JBEI develops and provides cutting-edge applications for feedstock development, deconstruction, and conversion to fuels and products. JBEI engages directly with commercial partners to advance commercialization of these applications.
Capability Expert(s)
Jay Keasling, Blake Simmons, Henrik Scheller
![](https://regionalbiomassresourcehub.inl.gov/content/uploads/7/2024/02/LBNL_JBEI_image.jpg)