In this Sustainable Energy Seminar, Daniel Noguera, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, will discuss the potential for creating valuable chemicals from lignin, which is an abundant but tough polymer found in plant biomass.

Scientists at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center engineered a microbe, Novosphingobium aromaticivorans DSM12444, to convert multiple lignin-derived aromatics into a single chemical called 2-pyrone-4,6-dicarboxylic acid (PDC), a potential precursor for making polyester, epoxy adhesives, and other bioplastics.