NSF Engineering Research Center · WashU

Carbon,
redesigned into useful things.

CURB pairs electrochemistry with engineered biology to turn waste carbon dioxide into fuels, chemicals, and materials that industry can actually use.

the process

Waste carbon is a feedstock, not just an emission.

Every year, industry vents carbon dioxide that could instead become the starting material for the things it makes. CURB builds the chemistry and the biology to do that conversion, and studies what it takes to run at the scale and cost that matter. The center brings catalysis, microbial engineering, and techno-economic modeling into one program so the science and its path to use advance together.

Research thrusts
01

Cell-based conversion

Engineering microbial chassis that take electrochemical intermediates and build them into target molecules.

02

Enzyme and hybrid cascades

Cell-free and hybrid routes that push conversion efficiency past what cells alone can reach.

03

Systems, translation, and workforce

The techno-economics, the scale-up testbeds, and the people who will carry the field forward.

The center at a glance representative
4
partner institutions
16
research projects
200+
researchers and trainees
3
thrusts, 3 testbeds
Washington University in St. LouisPartner UniversityPartner UniversityNational LaboratoryIndustry members