image: Jenn Brophy, assistant professor of bioengineering in the schools of Engineering and Medicine, is working to reduce agricultural pesticide use and its associated emissions by genetically enhancing plants’ natural pest defenses. (Image credit: Andrew Brodhead / Stanford University)
Credit: Andrew Brodhead / Stanford University
The Sustainability Accelerator at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability has selected 41 projects spanning biology, agriculture, electricity, industry, and water. The teams involve 67 faculty from 27 departments across five of the university’s seven schools.
The projects are as diverse as the problems they are trying to solve, ranging from developing plant-based meat alternatives to optimizing low-carbon steel production to helping coastal communities adapt to threats of saltwater intrusion and sea-level rise. This is the third round of funding for the Accelerator, which now has active projects in all eight of its focus areas.
The Accelerator focuses on translating research into impact, with managing directors on staff to provide industry knowledge, project support, and connections to outside collaborators who can help teams bring a product to market. The aim is to take the breadth of Stanford’s research knowledge and drive implementation at the pace and scale required to meet sustainability challenges.
“We’re in a unique position here at Stanford because we have world-class technology and scientific talent in project teams, unparalleled entrepreneurial resources, and networks of partners who have built and funded globally important companies and projects,” said Timothy Bouley, managing director for food and agriculture and biological solutions at the Accelerator. “We’re not just a funding mechanism – we’re an ecosystem builder and launchpad that is creating the architecture to achieve impact.”
Building with biology and feeding the world
Sixteen teams are working in food and agriculture or using biological innovation to improve sustainability. Projects are piloting a range of technical approaches, including genetic engineering, fermentation, and artificial intelligence, while addressing key climate vulnerabilities. One team is working to convert waste methane into aquaculture feed. Another is deriving high-quality protein from plant leaves.
Some projects are working to reduce carbon emissions through systems and policy. For example, one team is working to improve institutional food operations to provide diets that are healthier with lower emissions, while another is exploring economic levers to improve the competitiveness of lower-carbon protein.
Transforming electricity and industry
“I am inspired by the creativity and expertise of our project teams. It is an incredible honor to be able to collaborate with some of the brightest and most dedicated minds on grid and industrial decarbonization,” said Albert Chan, managing director of the Accelerator’s projects focused on electricity and grid systems and industry.
Newly funded projects in these areas include efforts related to photovoltaic manufacturing, grid optimization, battery development, microgrid expansion, and utility strategies for wildfire mitigation. Among eight new projects focusing on industry, one aims to advance a low-carbon cement product that reduces production costs and increases strength. Another plans to develop bio-based, rigid insulation sheets made from fungi and reused tree pulp.
Improving water access
Eleven of the 41 new project teams are drawing on Stanford’s deep expertise in groundwater management and other water topics to develop solutions related to water. Some are focused on helping farmers better manage irrigation water, while others are working to improve water treatment systems and infrastructure in ways that make water systems more resilient and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“No one doubts the importance of water, but we’ve still never been able to get clean fresh water to everyone who needs it,” said Jeffrey Brown, managing director for the Accelerator’s projects focused on water and greenhouse gas removal. “It’s this very unique piece of sustainability because it’s as much about policy and community engagement as it is about technology. That creates a special place for the Accelerator to work and bring solutions to market.”
One project involves collaboration with Valley Water, the wholesale water provider for Santa Clara County, and PureWater Peninsula, a group of San Francisco Bay Area municipal utilities led by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. The study will be the first in the world to evaluate how blending recycled water with conventional drinking water supplies in city distribution systems affects local tap water quality. The researchers aim to measure the effects of different blends of potable reuse water in eight pipelines to illustrate to other utilities how such pilot studies can be conducted.
“We want the Accelerator to be a living, ongoing center for innovation. We have this very strong cohort model, so new ideas are being formed and generating new learnings,” Brown said. “We want to be very inclusive of ideas. We want this natural evolution and turnover and capturing all the great ideas and people on campus.”
Kuhl is the Catherine Holman Johnson Director of Stanford Bio-X, the Walter B. Reinhold Professor in the School of Engineering, and a professor of mechanical engineering and (by courtesy) of bioengineering.
Kanan is also a senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy.
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AI-powered mushroom steaks
Mechanical engineering professor Ellen Kuhl and her Accelerator project team want to make non-animal meat taste better. And they’re leveraging AI to make it happen.
The team is manipulating the root structure of mushrooms to create alternative meat products that have a similar mouthfeel and texture as traditional beef – a major source of global methane emissions – to increase consumer adoption.
Joining her is Vayu Hill-Maini, assistant professor of bioengineering, who is also a trained chef and mushroom expert. The team will use engineering techniques to test the structure of their product to ensure it mimics familiar foods. To cut down development time and quickly rule out unworkable solutions, the team is designing AI tools to discover the best ingredients and process parameters.
Where the team doesn’t have expertise is in turning their innovation into products. That’s where the Sustainability Accelerator comes in.
“What’s unique about the Accelerator is that it provides the support and infrastructure to commercialize your ideas, so you can actually see them have an impact. We want to make something that doesn’t just stay in the lab – we’re passionate about making a change and driving innovation,” Kuhl said.
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A competitive alternative to plastic
To replace petroleum-based plastic – a ubiquitous material with a huge emissions and pollution footprint – you have to compete with a material that’s light, transparent, strong, durable, and cheap to produce.
That’s the ambition of a new Accelerator project led by chemistry professor Matthew Kanan. The project involves polylactic acid, the most popular non-petroleum–based polyester plastic, which is commonly used in food packaging because it is compostable. The team has developed a copolymer that makes it non-brittle, solving one of its major limitations compared to conventional, non-degradable plastics.
Kanan’s lab has been researching alternative plastics for about a decade and working on this problem for about three years. With the Accelerator’s support, the team is now cultivating industry partnerships to scale up the concept and create a marketable product.
“Stanford has incredible resources in terms of intellect, infrastructure, and analytical tools. There are certain things you can do really well here, and then there are other things that are not a great fit for an academic lab, like making multiple kilograms of polymer for advanced testing,” said Kanan, who also directs the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy at the Accelerator.
Within the next year, the team hopes to identify their ideal entry market and secure the right collaborations to scale manufacturing. “Whoever can deliver a degradable polymer that can compete on performance with the conventional materials that have created a pollution crisis will be in position to capture a lot of market share down the road. That’s the big opportunity,” he said.