Speaker: Kimberly L. Ogden
Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering & Agricultural-Biosystems Engineering
Department Chair, Chemical and Environmental Engineering, The University of Arizona (US)
Lead Principle Investigator & Executive Project Director, Sustainable Bioeconomy for Arid Regions (SBAR)
– Hosted by Dr. Rebekah Waller
Join us on Zoom.
Abstract
Sustainable Bioeconomy for Arid Regions (SBAR) is a multi-level research project that investigates the cultivation of a desert-dwelling crop called guayule. Guayule (perennial) is a source of natural rubber and resin, but 80% of the biomass is lignocellulosic. The crop is drought and heat-tolerant, grows on marginal lands, and is therefore an important alternative crop in times of water rationing. Scale-up to profitable production, however, requires feedstock improvements, expansion of cultivation, agronomic knowledge and practices, and economic crop residue utilization. Researchers from The University of Arizona (UA), Bridgestone Americas Inc., Colorado School of Mines (CSM), Colorado State University (CSU),
New Mexico State University (NMSU), and USDA-ARS are collaborating
on research, development, and deployment (RD&D) activities to: 1) improve
feedstock; 2) produce feedstock in a sustainable manner; 3) evaluate
co-products and understand the best methods for converting the bagasse
to biofuel; and 4) enhance transport, techno-economic, and
sustainability models to provide a clear path to commercialization.
The project has led to
a new collaborative effort on climate-smart commodities that will begin
in the spring of 2022. This seminar gives an overview of the project and focuses on growth
modeling of guayule in the field, evaluation of coproducts, and
techno-economic and life cycle analysis results.
About the speaker
Kimberly L. Ogden received her Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania (US) and her Master’s and PhD degrees from the University of Colorado (US). She is a fellow and past-President of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Ogden’s research focuses on bioreactor design for production of alternative fuels and chemicals from algae, guayule, and guar, as well as the energy/water nexus. She was the Engineering Technical Lead for the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts (NAABB). Her research in algae to biofuel continued through a Regional Algal Feedstock Testbed program funded by the Department of Energy. The goal of this project was to obtain long-term outdoor algal cultivation data that is available to the public for use in modeling and other research efforts, and demonstrate the feasibility of year-round cultivation.