The NSF Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals (CBiRC), headquartered at Iowa State, has received an additional $8.48 million and a three-year extension for funding from the National Science Foundation.

This extension brings NSF’s total funding to $35.26 million and 10 years, the total amount of years allowed by the NSF.

The main goal for researchers at CBiRC is to find ways to remove petroleum from products.

“Our main question is how do we start with biomass and convert it into biochemicals?” said Brent Shanks, center director of CBiRC

There are thousands of biochemicals that have potential applications as products, Shank said. That is why instead of focusing all their energy on a few main products, researchers have developed a platform that will develop many products and hopefully help reduce the use of petroleum.

“What we did that was so unique is provide a platform that supports biological chemicals,” said Basil Nikolau, deputy director of CBiRC.

Some products being researched include oils and lubricants.

“We are trying to do something bigger to impact a broad range of bioproducts,” Shank said.

Along with the research, NSF requires that centers under their funding have some sort of educational component to them.

The center prides itself on its education programs, said Raj Raman, director of the centers university education system.

“[CBiRC] has been an exciting thing particularly for the students,” Nikolau said. “Biorenewables are very appealing to students because the students have a motivation to save the world.”

The center provides programs at the pre-college and collegiate level.

One program allows high school students to come and work in one of the center’s labs to expose them to science, while another lets teachers come in and do their own research.

“This program enables [teachers] to see what research is really like and to bring excitement into the classroom,” Raman said.

Other programs put graduate students into K-12 classrooms every week to teach them how to “better articulate their science,” Raman said.

Raman said that the programs have affected tens of thousands of people, whether directly through the program or indirectly through the teachers and graduate students who meet with the K-12 students.

Sixty percent of undergraduates who participate in one of the center’s programs go onto graduate school, Raman said.

Some of the students even get internships at one of the 35 member companies partnered with CBiRC, Nikolau said.

Other students go on to form their own startup companies. Currently CBiRC has had six startup companies formed by students that had previously worked with CBiRC. Of those six, five have become a part of the 35-member group.

“These 35 members help researchers at CBiRC to know that what they are doing is relevant,” Shanks said.

While the center is headquartered at Iowa State University, nine other universities are affiliated with CBiRC

“We spread from Virginia to California, and from Texas to Minnesota,” Shank said. “This insures that we can impact every part of the country. I think it’s important to understand that this center is bigger than just ISU.”

CBiRC is in the home stretch. In three years the NSF funding will run out and the center will have to be self-sustaining.

“We are very excited on what we are doing to improve and innovate the bioproduct industry,” Shank said.