Alternative Fuels & Feedstock Initiative to Add Value to Seed Oil Crops through Improved Preprocessing, Scalability, and Valorization of Product Streams

INTRODUCTION Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (BEA), Management & Operating Contractor of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) owned Idaho National Laboratory (INL), is seeking an Expression of Interest (EOI) from prospective offerors to complement existing seed oil crop research efforts at the Biomass Feedstock National User Facility (BFNUF) through U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) funded work. Appropriate topics of research will develop a greater understanding of harvesting, storage, separations, and scalability that increase the value of seed oil crops by reducing processing costs, increasing yields, and/or generating material streams that can be valorized. Topics that are not of interest to this EOI include operations upstream of harvesting (e.g., agronomy, crop engineering, genetic engineering), and downstream of processing (e.g., new conversion technologies). This effort expects to fund a maximum of two projects through DOE�s Alternative Fuels & Feedstock Office (AFFO). Projects must be led by a U.S. university, with INL collaboration, and may include industry partners. BACKGROUND AFFO and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) seek university?led research that improves post?harvest preprocessing, storage, separations, and scalable fractionation of seed oil crops to reduce costs, increase yields, and create valuable non?oil product streams. Work must focus on post?harvest operations and demonstrate scalability. Awardees will collaborate with INL�s BFNUF and generate data supporting an INL?led technoeconomic assessment (TEA) SCOPE OF WORK BEA is seeking qualified university led teams to support the BFNUF and AFFO mission through novel research that increases the value of seed oil crops through more effective harvesting, storage, fractionation, and/or valorization for seed components. If the proposed work is bench-scale, a case must be made for why it is scalable to field applications. Proposed research may focus on commodity or niche seed oil crops. More niche seed...