Bioeconomy Institute

This platform encompasses projects that cross several platforms or involves technologies that cannot be classified as oleochemicals, carbohydrates, natural fibers, or thermochemical. Among the projects in this category are agricultural production, life cycle analysis, value-chain studies, and anaerobic digestion.

Feedstock Production Projects

• Development of Sustainable Cropping Systems for Biofuel Feedstock Production and Environmental Protection
• GIS Site Suitability Modeling to Identify Potential Corn Stover Collection and a Processing Plant in Northern Iowa
• Biocomplexity in the BioEconomy: The Natural and Industrial Ecology of Biobased Products
• Integrated Feedstock Supply Systems for Corn Stover Biomass
• Evaluation of Scenarios for the Industrial Use of Sweet Sorghum
• 3rd International Congress on Plant Metabolomics
• Effectiveness of Riparian Forest Buffers in Head watersheds of the Western Corn Belt Eco-region in Regulating Non-point Source Pollution
• Functional Genomics of Soybean Seed Composition
• Functional Genomics of the Biotin Metabolic Network of Arabidopsis

Biochar and Nutrient Recycling

Many people are aware that agriculture plays a role in global climate change.  It can be negative through excessive tillage of soil by allowing soil organic matter to be oxidized thus releasing additional carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.  It can be positive by letting plant matter (especially roots) mineralize to new soil organic matter, which is the process that produced Iowa's dark, rich soils in the first place.
 
However, there is evidence that human activity can also build soil organic matter through another process.  A soil rich in organic matter known as Terra Preta (dark earth) appears to have been created by pre-Columbian Indians in the Amazon Basin by the addition of charcoal and manure to soils that otherwise are so highly oxidized that they contain virtually no soil organic matter.  This is a well-documented case of human intervention not only producing fertile soils but sequestering from the atmosphere a stable form of solid carbon.  An excellent description of these soils is found at:
 
http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/terra_preta/TerraPretahome.htm
 
The question arises as to whether this process could be duplicated at the scale of modern agriculture.  Several researchers around the world are exploring this possibility using high tech charcoal kilns, which convert biomass into “agri-char” and in some cases an energy-rich bio-oil.  Some of the first deliberations on this possibility can be found at:
 
http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/biochar/WCSS2006/WCSSmeeting2006.htm
 
This is a new field of inquiry and relatively little has been published to date.  An international initiative has recently been organized:

http://www.biochar-international.org/

Biochar and Nutrient Recycling Projects

Nutrient Recovery from Integrated Cellulosic Biorefineries
Environmental Enhancement through Cornstover Utilization