Iowa State University, industry partners to elevate biobased product testing

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The Iowa State University BioCentury Research Farm will house a new multi-use fermentation facility in partnership with BioMADE. (Photo courtesy of Iowa State University)
Iowa State University is working with a U.S. Defense Department-backed organization to develop facilities that could make the university and its community a national destination for biobased product testing.
BioMADE, a Manufacturing Innovation Institute focused on bioindustrial manufacturing and supported by the U.S. Department of Defense, announced it has partnered with ISU and the ISU Research Park to create and operate a multiuse fermentation facility.
The $40 million project, funded with contributions from the Iowa Economic Development and Finance Authority, BioMADE and Iowa State, will be housed at the university's BioCentury Research Farm outside of Ames.
Kevin Moore, chief technology officer of the Biobased Products team in the office of the vice president for research, said the announcement brings to fruition work that was started by the state to strengthen biosciences industries in Iowa. He expects the program to be up and running in early 2028, and the new facility will utilize existing infrastructure to operate.
'This is why the state has invested money in this kind of effort, is that so we would have resources that could go after this opportunity,' Moore said. 'And that's what we did, and we're going forward.'
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The Biobased Products team at ISU was created as part of a statewide biosciences initiative, Moore said, with the goal of promoting economic development in related industries. Much of Moore's job is working with ISU faculty to commercialize ideas or products they've developed through startup companies, he said.
Fermentation is best known for its role in the beer-making process, Moore said, but it also has a hand in making enzymes that can be found in detergents and other items, natural products like vitamin C, bioplastics and more.
The university already has fermentation abilities, Moore said, but on a much smaller scale. The ISU Center for Crops Utilization Research houses a fermentation facility with equipment that goes up to 1,000 liters, where companies can test products on a small scale and complete 'proof of concept' work, but the new space will scale capabilities up to 10,000 liters.
Moore said the goal behind the new facility is to bring in companies to test their products before they have to decide whether to invest in customized, full-scale facilities of their own to mass-produce it.
'The key purpose of the announced facility is to de-risk investment decisions so that we can diversify the products that are made from corn, and also enable all of the various technologies that are being developed via fermentation, allowing them to come to reality,' Moore said.
As Iowa has plenty of feedstock and the need to diversify how corn is used, Moore said, and this new partnership provides opportunities to address both of these facts.
As the facilities will be managed by BioMADE and aimed at industry development, Moore said it is unlikely much research coming from ISU will be conducted there. Companies based in Iowa like Cargill and Kent Worldwide are expected to make use of the facilities, Moore said, as well as national and international partners of BioMADE.
'We do envision that some faculty members and their startup companies could be users of the facility, but really we view this as a national resource,' Moore said.
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