The U.S. Department of Energy announced awards for the FY24 Phase I Release 2 of the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program. Across DOE, 229 projects in 39 states received $52 million to pursue clean energy research and development (R&D), and eventual demonstration projects. The Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) selected 13 small businesses working to accelerate bioenergy R&D. The companies, located across 10 states, have been selected to receive up to $206,500 each for this Phase I SBIR award. Of the 13 BETO awards, six are first-time awardees, four are located in Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) zones, two are in socially and economically disadvantaged areas, and one is a woman-owned business.

The awards under the two BETO topics include: 

Sustainable Biomass Conversion to Bio-Based Materials – Regulations are emerging in the U.S. and worldwide that necessitate sustainable replacements to commonly used materials such as foam, adhesives, resins, and others. BETO supports efforts to decarbonize the industrial sector to produce cost-effective and sustainable chemicals, materials, and processes utilizing biomass and waste resources. This topic is focused on converting sustainable biomass and waste feedstocks to bio-based materials. 

• Altex Technologies Corporation (San Jose, CA): Battery Grade Graphite Production from Biomass.
• Capro-X, Inc. (Ithaca, NY): Cellulose Ester Bioplastics from Organic Waste-based Fatty Acids.
• Dynaflow, Inc. (Jessup, MD): Production and Extraction of High-Value Wax Esters and Lipids from Yarrowia Lipolytica Using Cavitation Enhanced Hot Water Extraction.
• Exelus, Inc. (Fairfield, NJ): Low-Cost Route to Glycols from Lignocellulosic Biomass.
• Global Algae Innovations, Inc. (San Diego, CA): Aqueous Algae Oil Extraction.
• Good Fibes Inc. (Chicago, IL): Additive Manufacturing of Recombinant Elastic Proteins for Sustainable Non-woven Textiles.
• New Iridium (Boulder, CO): Development of Novel Light-activated Process for Bio-acetic Acid Production.
• Physical Sciences, Inc. (Andover, MA): Sustainable Biopolymer Alternatives for Fossil-fuel Derived Foams.

Alternative Uses of Commercial Equipment (ACE) - As part of the government’s comprehensive strategy to decarbonize all modes of transportation, BETO is primarily focused on research, development & deployment to produce “drop-in” biofuels from renewable biomass and waste resources that are compatible with existing fueling infrastructure and difficult-to-electrify modes of transportation including aviation, maritime, rail, and medium-to-heavy duty off-road vehicles. Rather than developing new equipment, the intent of this topic is to test commercially available equipment, with minor or major modifications, to demonstrate preprocessing of biomass and waste feedstocks. 

• Atlantic Biomass Conversions, Inc. (Frederick, MD): Low-Cost Production of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) from Perennial Feedstocks using Simultaneous Ball Milling and Enzyme Hydrolysis.
• Enexor BioEnergy, LLC (Franklin, TN): Modular Biomass Preprocessing System Development. 
• Forest Concepts, LLC (Auburn, WA): Particle-level Densification of Bulk Biomass Materials to Replace Pelletized Fuels and Feedstocks.
• Novastus (Cookeville, TN): Driving Decarbonization – Producing RDF from Waste Feedstocks Using Commercial Equipment.
• WeNeW Carbology, LLC (Charlottesville, VA): Combine and Blower Equipment Adaptation for Biomass Preprocessing.

Read more about each BETO SBIR/STTR project and visit BETO’s funding announcement page for other upcoming funding opportunities.