Replacing fossil feedstocks with renewable biomass sources will be a key element of a successful circular bioeconomy. This change has the potential to increase environmental sustainability and local sourcing in manufacturing; provide new revenue sources for farmers, ranchers, and municipalities; and support supply-chain resilience. The carbon needed for bioproducts abounds in the environment, but much of it is locked into materials that are not yet cost-effective to use. Efficiently deconstructing complex biomass into useful carbon building blocks, or “turning the carbon we have into the carbon we want,” will require new scientific approaches and interdisciplinary collaboration.
If we are to move towards a more sustainable and circular bioeconomy, we must consider nontraditional biomass sources that do not substantially compete with food production, and that divert waste from unproductive or environmentally harmful pathways. New and creative research will be required to bring these “future feedstocks” into use.
Schmidt Sciences’ Virtual Institute on Feedstocks of the Future (VIFF), with support from the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR), aims to expand the science, technology, and engineering available to advance the use of future feedstocks in bioproduction, creating new economic and environmental benefits.
VIFF focuses its efforts on interdisciplinary research and uncommon partnerships. VIFF’s research efforts leverage innovations in biology, chemistry, biochemistry, and genetic engineering, but also mechanical and process engineering; agriculture, rural development, and economics; and computer modeling and data management. Individually and collectively, VIFF research projects will work to advance science, technology, and engineering for society.
VIFF is a consortium of consortia, consisting of five complementary, interdisciplinary, and regionally distributed teams of researchers and partners. Independently, these teams will focus their innovative research approaches on different obstacles and opportunities relevant to specific future feedstocks, processing and conversion approaches, and regional biomass utilization. Collectively, they will share knowledge and joint efforts to help build a future in which nontraditional and waste biomass feedstocks bring us closer to a sustainable and circular bioeconomy.
