South Dakota Mines will have the grand opening of
the CNAM-Bio Center from 1 p.m.-4 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023.
South Dakota Mines will have the grand opening of
the Composite and Nanocomposite Advanced
Manufacturing-Biomaterials Center (CNAM-Bio) Bioprocessing Facility at the Composites and Polymer Engineering (CAPE) Laboratory from 1 p.m.-4
p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023. The CAPE Laboratory is at 920 E. St. Patrick St. Rapid City, SD, 57701.
CNAM-Bio works with industry and government partners
to help solve bioprocessing challenges and create a seamless path from
bench-scale to pilot-level production. Their mission involves developing sustainably
manufactured bioproducts from renewable feedstocks, including forestry and
agriculture residues like corn stover. CNAM-Bio can produce bioproducts such as
biodegradable bioplastics and various specialty chemicals for a range of applications,
such as biosurfactants, biosolvents and bio-based coatings.
“This would be a way to add value to South Dakota’s
agricultural and forestry commodities. Once we harvest corn or soybeans the
remaining biomass can be made into high-value materials via bioprocessing,”
says Laurie Anderson, Ph.D., interim vice president of research at SDM.
The new bioprocessing facility will be crucial in
allowing CNAM-Bio to evaluate the commercial viability of its bioproduct and
bioprocessing innovations before transitioning them to the newly opened POET
Bioproducts Center operated by Dakota BioWorx in Brookings, a partnership
between SDM, South Dakota State University and private industry, which opened
Oct. 11.
CNAM-Bio’s new bioprocessing infrastructure will
support bioproduction scaling using bioreactors ranging from three to 260
liters. Transitioning from the bench scale to a larger bioreactor is not viable
without step-wise scale-up of processes to the intermediate pilot scale provided
by the advanced bioprocessing capabilities at the SDM facility, says David
Salem, Ph.D., CNAM-Bio director.
“We aim to scale up to a level that allows us to
determine the feasibility of large-scale production,” Salem says.
“This facility will attract research and development
money into South Dakota and use abundant feedstocks from agriculture and
forestry for scale up to pilot scales for commercialization,” says Anderson.