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The Georgia Tech Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI) hosted the APPTI Net Zero Workshop on Decarbonizing the Pulp & Paper Sector during the second week of August.

Over 40 participants from more than 20 organizations participated in the event aimed to educate the pulp, paper, and tissue manufacturing community on current decarbonization technologies ready for immediate deployment, while also exploring the investments needed for future breakthrough innovations. 

The workshop kicked off with an overview of APPTI by Chris Luettgen, managing director of APPTI and RBI's lead for process efficiency and intensification of pulp paper packaging & tissue manufacturing. Presentations and discussions revolved around three focus areas for decarbonization--Carbon Capture and Beneficial Use; Biogas Generation from Waste Streams; and Lime Kiln Alternatives to Fossil Fuels. Presenters and panelists consisted of members from the Department of Energy’s Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO), academia (North Carolina State University, Abo Academy, University of Toronto, University of Minnesota), and industry (Veolia, Valmet, Metso, FPInnovations, Nexight, Beck and Associates). 

RBI’s  Carson Meredith, Valerie Thomas, and Cyrus Aidun were among the presenters. Meredith presented his research on felt design to prevent re-wet, while Thomas’ talk was on the topic, life cycle assessment: meeting policy benchmarks for decarbonization, and Aidun presented his work on multi-phase forming.  

The workshop concluded with the net zero committee discussing key takeaways from the workshop and potential for a life cycle assessment on the paper industry.

“The outcome of this two-day workshop is a strong feeling about the work RBI and APPTI are doing for the industry. The feedback I received was all very positive,” said Luettgen.

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In 2017, a long, oddly shaped asteroid passed by Earth. Called ‘Oumuamua, it was the first known interstellar object to visit our solar system, but it wasn’t an isolated incident — less than two years later, in 2019, a second interstellar object (ISO) was discovered. 

“‘Oumuamua was found passing just 15 million miles from Earth — that’s much closer than Mars or Venus,” says James Wray. “But it was formed in an entirely different solar system. Studying these objects could give us incredible insight into extrasolar planets, and how our planet fits into the universe.”

Wray, a professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, has just been awarded a Simons Foundation Pivot Fellowship to do just that. Pivot Fellowships are among the most prestigious sources of funding for cutting-edge research, and support leading researchers who have the deep interest, curiosity and drive to make contributions to a new discipline.

Wray has primarily studied the geoscience of Mars. He will leverage knowledge of nearby planets to understand ISOs and planets much farther away. “I want to understand how planets got to be the way they are, and if they could have ever hosted life,” he explains. “Extrasolar planets give us many more places to ask those questions than our solar system does, but they're too distant to visit with spacecraft. ISOs provide a unique opportunity to explore other solar systems without leaving our own.”

The Fellowship will provide salary support as well as funding for research, travel, and professional development. “Seed funds like this are so valuable,” says Wray. “I’m incredibly grateful to the Simons Foundation. I’d also like to thank Georgia Tech for its support,” he adds, sharing that the Center for Space Technology and Research supported a related research effort at the University of Hawaii earlier this year. “My mentor and I were able to spend some of that time improving our Pivot Fellowship proposal, which played a critical role in securing this Fellowship.”

In search of ISOs

Wray will study small solar system bodies like asteroids and comets to decode the processes of planet formation and space weathering, and will analyze data from the 2017 and 2019 ISOs.

He will also work alongside collaborators including Karen Meech of the University of Hawaii, who led the paper characterizing ‘Oumuamua, to conceptualize what an intercept mission might look like. 

“We still have a lot of questions regarding ISOs,” he says. “Hundreds of papers have already been written about them, but we still don't know the answers.” One key mystery is the composition of the bodies: both the 2017 and 2019 objects were compositionally different from those in our solar system.

“Are they inherently different from the bodies in our solar system, or did the long journey to our solar system make them that way? Is our solar system different from others?” Wray asks. “We could answer so many questions with even a simple picture of the next ISO that comes close enough for us to intercept with spacecraft.”

A cosmic timeline

While there is no guarantee that another ISO might be spotted in our solar system, the timing is opportune — upcoming telescope surveys are poised to detect such interstellar objects. “In mid-2025, when I will start this Fellowship, the new Rubin Observatory will begin scanning the entire sky,” Wray says. “It has the potential to discover up to several new ISOs per year.”

“ISO visits are always brief,” he adds, “so the research needs to be in place for when one is spotted.” If an interstellar object is detected, Wray and Meech will be poised to leverage specialized telescopes in Hawaii, along with others worldwide, to better understand it, studying its size, shape, and composition — and potentially sending spacecraft to image it.

“We might never find another ISO — or they might be the key to imminent breakthroughs in understanding our place in the galaxy,” Wray adds. “I'm extremely grateful to the Simons Foundation for the flexibility to pursue this research at whatever pace the cosmos allows.”

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Amino acids are essential for nearly every process in the human body. Often referred to as ‘the building blocks of life,’ they are also critical for commercial use in products ranging from pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements, to cosmetics, animal feed, and industrial chemicals. 

And while our bodies naturally make amino acids, manufacturing them for commercial use can be costly — and that process often emits greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide (CO2).

In a landmark study, a team of researchers has created a first-of-its kind methodology for synthesizing amino acids that uses more carbon than it emits. The research also makes strides toward making the system cost-effective and scalable for commercial use. 

“To our knowledge, it’s the first time anyone has synthesized amino acids in a carbon-negative way using this type of biocatalyst,” says lead corresponding author Pamela Peralta-Yahya, who emphasizes that the system provides a win-win for industry and environment. “Carbon dioxide is readily available, so it is a low-cost feedstock — and the system has the added bonus of removing a powerful greenhouse gas from the atmosphere, making the synthesis of amino acids environmentally friendly, too.”

The study, “Carbon Negative Synthesis of Amino Acids Using a Cell-Free-Based Biocatalyst,” published today in ACS Synthetic Biology, is publicly available. The research was led by Georgia Tech in collaboration with the University of Washington, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the University of Minnesota.

The Georgia Tech research contingent includes Peralta-Yahya, a professor with joint appointments in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE); first author Shaafique Chowdhury, a Ph.D. student in ChBE; Ray Westenberg, a Ph.D student in Bioengineering; and Georgia Tech alum Kimberly Wennerholm (B.S. ChBE ’23).

Costly chemicals

There are two key challenges to synthesizing amino acids on a large scale: the cost of materials, and the speed at which the system can generate amino acids.

While many living systems like cyanobacteria can synthesize amino acids from CO2, the rate at which they do it is too slow to be harnessed for industrial applications, and these systems can only synthesize a limited number of chemicals.

Currently, most commercial amino acids are made using bioengineered microbes. “These specially designed organisms convert sugar or plant biomass into fuel and chemicals,” explains first author Chowdhury, “but valuable food resources are consumed if sugar is used as the feedstock — and pre-processing plant biomass is costly.” These processes also release CO2 as a byproduct.

Chowdhury says the team was curious “if we could develop a commercially viable system that could use carbon dioxide as a feedstock. We wanted to build a system that could quickly and efficiently convert CO2 into critical amino acids, like glycine and serine.”

The team was particularly interested in what could be accomplished by a ‘cell-free’ system that leveraged some process of a cellular system — but didn’t actually involve living cells, Peralta-Yahya says, adding that systems using living cells need to use part of their CO2 to fuel their own metabolic processes, including cell growth, and have not yet produced sufficient quantities of amino acids.

“Part of what makes a cell-free system so efficient,” Westenberg explains, “is that it can use cellular enzymes without needing the cells themselves. By generating the enzymes and combining them in the lab, the system can directly convert carbon dioxide into the desired chemicals. Because there are no cells involved, it doesn’t need to use the carbon to support cell growth — which vastly increases the amount of amino acids the system can produce.”

A novel solution

While scientists have used cell-free systems before, one of the necessary chemicals, the cell lysate biocatalyst, is extremely costly. For a cell-free system to be economically viable at scale, the team needed to limit the amount of cell lysate the system needed.

After creating the ten enzymes necessary for the reaction, the team attempted to dilute the biocatalyst using a technique called ‘volumetric expansion.’ “We found that the biocatalyst we used was active even after being diluted 200-fold,” Peralta-Yahya explains. “This allows us to use significantly less of this high-cost material — while simultaneously increasing feedstock loading and amino acid output.”

It’s a novel application of a cell-free system, and one with the potential to transform both how amino acids are produced, and the industry’s impact on our changing climate. 

“This research provides a pathway for making this method cost-effective and scalable,” Peralta-Yahya says. “This system might one day be used to make chemicals ranging from aromatics and terpenes, to alcohols and polymers, and all in a way that not only reduces our carbon footprint, but improves it.”

Funding: Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research Program.

DOI: 10.1021/acssynbio.4c00359

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The Strategic Energy Institute and the Energy, Policy, and Innovation Center at Georgia Tech are proud to announce the winners of the James G. Campbell Fellowship and Spark Awards for 2024. 

Michael Biehler, a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, has been selected as the recipient of the 2024 James G. Campbell Fellowship. The Fellowship is an annual award given to a Georgia Tech graduate student studying renewable energy systems. Candidates are nominated by their advisors in recognition of their exceptional academic achievements in the field of renewable energy.

Biehler’s research leverages multi-modal machine learning to tackle critical challenges in manufacturing, such as enhancing energy efficiency in manufacturing processes. He is advised by Jianjun (Jan) Shi, Carolyn J. Stewart Chair and Professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. 

“I consider this award an incredible honor, and the support means a lot to me, especially with the recent arrival of our second daughter—it will make a significant difference for us,” says Biehler. 

The Annual Spark Award recognizes current graduate students who have exhibited outstanding leadership in promoting student engagement with energy research at Georgia Tech, with evidence of broader impacts and service/leadership. The Spark Award recipients for 2024 include Georgia Tech graduate students Richard Asiamah, Erik Barbosa, Keun Hee Kim, Sanggyun Kim, and Erin Phillips. 

Richard Asiamah is a third-year Ph.D. student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). His research focuses on power systems optimization, emphasizing the efficient integration of renewable energy resources into the electricity grid. Asiamah has recently worked as a graduate electrical engineering intern at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, and is currently serving as the president of the ECE Graduate Students’ Organization. 

Erik Barbosa is pursuing a doctorate in mechanical engineering and works under Akanksha Menon, assistant professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. His work in the Water Energy Research Lab focuses on utilizing inorganic salt hydrates to develop thermochemical energy storage, ranging from the material level to system scale, to decarbonize heat for building applications. Barbosa has been actively engaged with mentoring undergraduate students and high schoolers by exposing them to innovative technologies that decarbonize energy. 

Keun Hee Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in the Woodruff School. Kim’s research focuses on developing solid polymer electrolytes and artificial interlayers for lithium metal batteries, and synthesizing oxygen evolution reaction and oxygen reduction reaction catalyst materials for proton exchange membrane fuel cells and water electrolyzers.

Sanggyun Kim​ is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in materials science and engineering, advised by Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena, assistant professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering. Kim’s research focuses on understanding the complex interfacial interactions between hybrid organic-inorganic halide perovskite films and newly designed charge transport layers in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). His goal is to drive progress in solar energy technology by integrating novel polymer- and molecule-based interlayers, improving the efficiency and stability of PSCs to support more sustainable photovoltaic solutions.

Erin Phillips is a doctoral student in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Her research addresses difficulties associated with lignin valorization, which includes controlling the isolation of lignin from the original irregular lignocellulose structure and depolymerizing lignin into aromatic monomer units via mechanocatalysis. These aromatics can further be valorized as renewable sources for the creation of biofuels and other green chemicals. Phillips is currently serving as the president of the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI) student chapter at Georgia Tech. 

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A first-of-its-kind algorithm developed at Georgia Tech is helping scientists study interactions between electrons. This innovation in modeling technology can lead to discoveries in physics, chemistry, materials science, and other fields.

The new algorithm is faster than existing methods while remaining highly accurate. The solver surpasses the limits of current models by demonstrating scalability across chemical system sizes ranging from large to small. 

Computer scientists and engineers benefit from the algorithm’s ability to balance processor loads. This work allows researchers to tackle larger, more complex problems without the prohibitive costs associated with previous methods.

Its ability to solve block linear systems drives the algorithm’s ingenuity. According to the researchers, their approach is the first known use of a block linear system solver to calculate electronic correlation energy.

The Georgia Tech team won’t need to travel far to share their findings with the broader high-performance computing community. They will present their work in Atlanta at the 2024 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC24).

[MICROSITE: Georgia Tech at SC24] 

“The combination of solving large problems with high accuracy can enable density functional theory simulation to tackle new problems in science and engineering,” said Edmond Chow, professor and associate chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE).

Density functional theory (DFT) is a modeling method for studying electronic structure in many-body systems, such as atoms and molecules. 

An important concept DFT models is electronic correlation, the interaction between electrons in a quantum system. Electron correlation energy is the measure of how much the movement of one electron is influenced by presence of all other electrons.

Random phase approximation (RPA) is used to calculate electron correlation energy. While RPA is very accurate, it becomes computationally more expensive as the size of the system being calculated increases.

Georgia Tech’s algorithm enhances electronic correlation energy computations within the RPA framework. The approach circumvents inefficiencies and achieves faster solution times, even for small-scale chemical systems.

The group integrated the algorithm into existing work on SPARC, a real-space electronic structure software package for accurate, efficient, and scalable solutions of DFT equations. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Phanish Suryanarayana is SPARC’s lead researcher.

The group tested the algorithm on small chemical systems of silicon crystals numbering as few as eight atoms. The method achieved faster calculation times and scaled to larger system sizes than direct approaches.

“This algorithm will enable SPARC to perform electronic structure calculations for realistic systems with a level of accuracy that is the gold standard in chemical and materials science research,” said Suryanarayana.

RPA is expensive because it relies on quartic scaling. When the size of a chemical system is doubled, the computational cost increases by a factor of 16. 

Instead, Georgia Tech’s algorithm scales cubically by solving block linear systems. This capability makes it feasible to solve larger problems at less expense. 

Solving block linear systems presents a challenging trade-off in solving different block sizes. While larger blocks help reduce the number of steps of the solver, using them demands higher computational cost per step on computer processors. 

Tech’s solution is a dynamic block size selection solver. The solver allows each processor to independently select block sizes to calculate. This solution further assists in scaling, and improves processor load balancing and parallel efficiency.

“The new algorithm has many forms of parallelism, making it suitable for immense numbers of processors,” Chow said. “The algorithm works in a real-space, finite-difference DFT code. Such a code can scale efficiently on the largest supercomputers.”

Georgia Tech alumni Shikhar Shah (Ph.D. CSE 2024), Hua Huang (Ph.D. CSE 2024), and Ph.D. student Boqin Zhang led the algorithm’s development. The project was the culmination of work for Shah and Huang, who completed their degrees this summer. John E. Pask, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, joined the Tech researchers on the work.

Shah, Huang, Zhang, Suryanarayana, and Chow are among more than 50 students, faculty, research scientists, and alumni affiliated with Georgia Tech who are scheduled to give more than 30 presentations at SC24. The experts will present their research through papers, posters, panels, and workshops. 

SC24 takes place Nov. 17-22 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. 

“The project’s success came from combining expertise from people with diverse backgrounds ranging from numerical methods to chemistry and materials science to high-performance computing,” Chow said.

“We could not have achieved this as individual teams working alone.”

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The aviation industry’s commitment to meaningful carbon reduction underscores the need for investing in Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), which provides the most promising solution to achieving net-zero carbon by 2050. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), with the right policy measures and financial instruments in place, SAF could help the industry achieve 65% of this reduction. As a key transportation center in the U.S., the Southeast holds immense potential to become a hub for SAF production and adoption.

This prospect was the focus of a recent workshop organized by three Georgia Tech units – the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business and its initiative, the Drawdown Georgia Business Compact; the School of Public Policy; and the Strategic Energy Institute; along with the U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office. The workshop gathered together multiple stakeholder groups representing federal, state, and local government, industry, academia, and the aviation sector to chart a path forward for the Southeast.

Read more at the Drawdown GA Business Compact Website

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Southern Company, Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), Smart Wires, and other partners have announced that they are collaborating on a new U.S. Department of Energy-funded project. Scheduled for 2025, the project will jointly implement advanced power flow control (APFC) and dynamic line rating (DLR) technologies to support the connection of renewable energy sources and new demand more quickly.

This project, led by the Georgia Tech Center for Distributed Energy with professor Deepak Divan as Principal Investigator, was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy in November 2021 as one of four projects to receive funding for grid enhancing technologies (GETs) that improve grid reliability, optimize existing grid infrastructure, and support the connection of renewable energy. It will use Smart Wires’ APFC solution— SmartValve™—in a mobile deployment combined with its DLR software—SUMO—and also develop control algorithms that improve and fine-tune how these solutions can work in synergy to optimize use of the grid. 

“The launch of this innovative project represents an important step toward more efficient and reliable integration of cleaner energy sources,” said Tim Lieuwen, interim executive vice president for Research at Georgia Institute of Technology. “This collaboration allows us to identify, develop and test new ways to manage the power grid in Georgia by co-deploying APFC and DLR technologies.” 

While the effectiveness of these solutions is well documented in multiple third-party reports, such as RMI’s GETting Interconnected in PJM, this project will be the first large-scale implementation of both technologies together. It will specifically examine their combined impact and result in the development of design control algorithms to unlock the combined power of these solutions and maximize their efficiency.  

SUMO identifies when lines have spare capacity based on real-time weather conditions, while SmartValves can redirect power flows to quickly utilize this spare capacity. This also applies in reverse, with SUMO identifying when the dynamic ratings of lines are less than the static rating. If it’s a hot day, for example, SmartValves can redirect power flows away from these circuits to others with capacity, reducing the risk of system faults while improving operational safety.   

The mobile deployment of SmartValves can be installed and in-service within one week. This provides a rapidly deployable solution that avoids extended outages and can be easily moved between sites as system needs evolve over time. 

“We’re delighted to provide both SmartValves and SUMO in this project to move the dial in terms of deploying multiple GETs in synergy and optimizing their use,” said Joaquin Peirano, General Manager for the Americas at Smart Wires. “The commitment of utilities like Southern Company to get the most from their existing grid with GETs, combined with the positive regulatory developments such as FERC’s recent Order 1920, positions the U.S. to capture the full value these technologies can provide on transmission grids.”  

The project will be delivered in 2025 and will involve a one-year performance period to provide Southern Company with operational experience that can be shared with other utilities and pave the way for greater use of GETs in the U.S.  

About Georgia Institute of Technology 

The Georgia Institute of Technology is a leading research university, committed to improving the human condition through advanced science and technology. Georgia Tech’s engineering and computing colleges are the largest and among the highest-ranked in the nation. The Institute also offers outstanding programs in business, design, liberal arts, and sciences.  

With $1.37 billion annually in research, development, and sponsored activities across all six colleges and the Georgia Tech Research Institute, Georgia Tech is an engine of economic development for the state of Georgia, the Southeast, and the nation. Georgia Tech routinely ranks among the top U.S. universities in volume of research conducted; In 2023, the Institute ranked 17th among U.S. academic institutions in research and development expenditures, according to the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development Survey. 

About Smart Wires 

Smart Wires is the world’s leading grid enhancing technology and services provider. We help electric utilities unlock capacity and solve their critical grid issues, using our solutions to create a more flexible, reliable and affordable grid. This enables a faster, more cost-efficient path to meet growing electricity demand with clean energy generation, at lowest cost to consumers. Headquartered in the Research Triangle of North Carolina, Smart Wires has a global workforce of passionate and visionary industry-leading experts across four continents, who work every day to transform grids globally. In collaboration with our customers and partners, we’ve unlocked over 3.5 Gigawatts capacity—enough to power over 2.5 million homes—supporting the faster integration of clean energy and new demand, enhancing security of supply and delivering cost savings to consumers. 

Together, we are reimagining the grid for net zero. 

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