[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 184 (Monday, September 23, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 49770-49771]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-20483]
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NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
[19-053]
Notice of Centennial Challenges CO2 Conversion Challenge
AGENCY: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
ACTION: Notice of Centennial Challenges CO2 Conversion
Challenge.
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SUMMARY: Phase 2 of the CO2 Conversion Challenge is open,
and teams that wish to compete may now register. Centennial Challenges
is a program of prize competitions to stimulate innovation in
technologies of interest and value to NASA and the nation. This
competition has two phases with a total prize purse of up to $1
million. Phase 1 (completed in April 2019) was the Concept Phase with a
prize purse of $250,000 awarded equality among the top five scoring
teams. Teams were asked to demonstrate capabilities to develop
technologies to manufacture ``food'' for microbial bioreactors from
CO2 and hydrogen molecules, with the ultimate goal of
producing glucose. Phase 2 is a Demonstration Challenge with a prize
purse of up to $750,000. NASA is providing the prize purse, and NASA
Centennial Challenges will be managing the Challenge with support from
The Common Pool.
DATES: Challenge registration for Phase 2 opens September 19, 2019, and
will remain open until 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time on November 30, 2019.
Teams must submit their application by June 5, 2020. The competition
will conclude in September.
Other important dates:
March 1-31, 2020--Optional Challenge Mid-Point Progress Updates Due
June 5, 2020--Application Deadline
September 2020--Winners Announced
ADDRESSES: The CO2 Conversion Challenge Phase 2 competitors
will initially register and submit an application explaining components
of their system and its operation virtually via electronic submissions.
Upon review of a team's registration and eligibility, a judge will
schedule a site visit to the team's laboratory to observe the
successful operation of the system and collect a sample. The sample
will then be collected and sent to an independent laboratory for
analysis. Phase 2 will be executed at the participants' facility or
lab.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: To register for or get additional
information regarding the CO2 Conversion Challenge please
visit: https://www.co2conversionchallenge.org/. For general information
on the NASA Centennial Challenges Program please visit: http://www.nasa.gov/challenges. General questions and comments regarding the
program should be addressed to Monsi Roman, Centennial Challenges
Program, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35812. Email
address: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Summary
Competitors are required to build, demonstrate and produce a
product from a system that manufactures simple sugars for microbial
bioreactors from CO2 and hydrogen molecules, with the
ultimate goal of producing glucose.
Future planetary habitats on Mars will require a high degree of
self-sufficiency. This requires a concerted effort to both effectively
recycle supplies brought from Earth and use local resources such as
CO2, water and regolith to manufacture mission-relevant
products. Human life support and habitation systems will treat
wastewater to make drinking water, recover oxygen from CO2,
convert solid wastes to useable products, grow food, and specially
design equipment and develop equipment packaging to allow reuse in
alternate forms. In addition, In-Situ resource utilization (ISRU)
techniques will use available local materials to generate substantial
quantities of products to supply life support needs, propellants and
building materials, and support other In-Space manufacturing (ISM)
activities.
Many of these required mission products such as food, nutrients,
medicines, plastics, fuels, and adhesives are organic, and are
comprised mostly of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen molecules.
These molecules are readily available within the Martian atmosphere
(CO2, N2) and surface water (H2O), and
could be used as the feedstock to produce an array of desired products.
While some products will be most efficiently made using physicochemical
methods or photosynthetic organisms such as plants and algae, many
products may best be produced using heterotrophic (organic substrate
utilizing) microbial production systems. Terrestrially, commercial
heterotrophic bioreactor systems utilize fast growing microbes combined
with high concentrations of readily metabolized organic substrates,
such as sugars, to enable very rapid rates of bio-product generation.
The type of organic substrate used strongly affects the efficiency
of the microbial system. For example, while an organism may be able to
use simple organic compounds such as formate (1- carbon) and acetate
(2-carbon), these ``low-energy'' substrates will typically result in
poor growth. In order to maximize the rate of growth and reduce system
size and mass, organic substrates that are rich in energy and carbon,
such as sugars, are needed. Sugars such as D-Glucose, a six-carbon
sugar that is used by a wide variety of model heterotrophic microbes,
is typically the preferred organic substrate for commercial terrestrial
microbial production systems and experimentation. There are a wide
range of other compounds, such as less complex sugars and glycerol that
could also support relatively rapid rates of growth.
To effectively employ microbial bio-manufacturing platforms on
planetary bodies such as Mars, it is vital that the carbon substrates
be made on-site using local materials. However, generating complex
compounds like glucose on Mars presents an array of challenges. While
sugar-based substrates are inexpensively made in bulk on Earth from
plant biomass, this approach is currently not feasible in space.
Alternatively, current physicochemical processes such as photo/
electrochemical and thermal catalytic systems are able to make smaller
organic compounds such as methane, formate, acetate and some alcohols
from CO2; however, these systems have not been developed to
make more complex organic molecules, such as sugars, primarily because
of difficult technical challenges combined with the low cost of
obtaining sugars from alternate methods on Earth. Novel research and
development is required to create the physicochemical systems required
to directly make more complex molecules from CO2 in space
environments. It is hoped that advancements in the generation of
suitable microbial substrates will spur interest in making complex
organic compounds from CO2 that could also serve as
feedstock molecules in traditional terrestrial chemical synthesis and
manufacturing operations.
[[Page 49771]]
The CO2 Conversion Challenge is devoted to fostering the
development of CO2 conversion systems that can effectively produce
singular or multiple molecular compounds identified as desired
microbial manufacturing ingredients and/or that provide a significant
advancement of physicochemical CO2 conversion for the production of
useful molecules.
I. Prize Amounts
Phase 2 of the CO2 Conversion Challenge will award to up
to three (3) top teams, who will receive prizes from a prize purse of
$750,000 (seven-hundred fifty thousand dollars). Teams will be required
to submit: (1) An application containing a description of the
physiochemical conversion system they will build to demonstrate the
production of carbon-based molecular compounds and (2) a video of the
system in operation that clearly depicts the overall component and
operation of the system. Upon completion of a phone interview with a
judge, teams will be required to host a site visit by a judge where the
operation of the system is demonstrated and a sample to be analyzed is
produced and collected. The team's product will be examined using an
independent chemical analysis to determine if any of the targeted
compounds are present.
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Weighting
Challenge targeted compounds factor
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D-Glucose................................................... 100
Other 6-carbon sugars (D-hexoses)........................... 80
5-carbon sugars (D-pentoses)................................ 50
4-carbon sugars (D-tetroses)................................ 10
3-carbon sugars (D-trioses)................................. 5
D-Glycerol.................................................. 5
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If enantiomers of the targeted compounds are present, the mass of
each will be measured. The total score will be calculated by taking the
mass of the most desired enantiomer ``D'' form minus the mass of the
undesired ``L'' form. For example, if equal amounts of ``D'' and ``L''
glucose are found, then no points will be given for that compound.
The three highest scoring teams will be awarded the following
prizes:
First place--$350,000 (three hundred fifty thousand U.S. dollars)
Second place--$200,000 (two hundred thousand U.S. dollars)
Third place--$100,000 (one hundred thousand U.S. dollars)
In the event of a tie score between two or more teams, the
corresponding award(s) will be divided evenly among the teams. For
example, a tie for first place will result in both teams receiving
($350,000 + $200,000)/2 = $275,000.
$100,000 bonus prizes awarded to as many three (3) teams.
Bonus Prize--System Effectiveness for Space Mission Applications:
The information provided in the Demonstration Application as well as
information gathered during the on-site judging event will be used by
the judging panel to assess the overall system effectiveness for future
application in space missions. A total of $100,000 will be available
for bonus prizes in amounts determined by the judges for up to 3 teams.
Teams do not need to win one of the contest prizes to be awarded a
Bonus Prize. The top score will receive $50,000 and the next two
highest scores will receive $25,000. A minimum score of 65 points is
required to be eligible for a bonus prize.
II. Eligibility
To be eligible to win a prize, competitors must;
(1) NASA welcomes applications from individuals, companies, or
other entities that have an official legal status under applicable law
(state, federal or country) and that are in good standing in the
jurisdiction under which they are organized with the following
restrictions:
(a) Individuals participating singly or in a group must be U.S.
citizens or permanent residents of the United States and must be 18
years of age or older.
(b) Private entities must be incorporated in and maintaining a
primary place of business in the United States.
(c) Teams must be comprised of otherwise eligible individuals or
entities, and led by an otherwise eligible individual or entity.
(2) Register on the challenge website and comply with all
requirements in the rules and team agreement.
(3) U.S. government employees may enter the competition, or be
members of prize-eligible teams, so long as they are not acting within
the scope of their federal employment, and they rely on no facilities,
access, personnel, knowledge or other resources that are available to
them as a result of their employment except for those resources
available to all other participants on an equal basis. For additional
information regarding government employee participation see https://www.co2conversionchallenge.org/.
(4) Teams must conduct their demonstration work in facilities based
in the United States, to include AK, HI and U.S. territories.
(5) Foreign citizens may only participate through an eligible US
entity as:
a. An employee of such entity
b. A full-time student of such entity, if the entity is a
university or other accredited institution of higher learning,
c. An owner of such entity, so long as foreign citizens own less
than 50% of the interests in the entity, OR
d. A contractor under written contract to such entity.
For additional information regarding foreign citizen participation
see https://www.co2conversionchallenge.org/.
The full details for eligibility requirements can be found on the
official challenge site: https://www.co2conversionchallenge.org/.
III. Intellectual Property
Each application will be required to disclose the anticipated
ownership, use, and licensing of any intellectual property. The team
will be required to represent and warrant that the entry is an original
work created solely by the team, that the team owns all intellectual
property in and to the entry, and that no other party has any right,
title, claim or interest in the entry, except as expressly identified
by the team to NASA in writing in the application and at the conclusion
of the competition. NASA claims no right, title, or interest to any
such intellectual property solely as a consequence of the team's
participation in the competition, including the winning of a prize.
NASA reserves the right to share any submissions or related information
received with its civil servants and contractors, and reserves the
right to approach individual participants about any future
opportunities at the conclusion of the competition.
IV. Rules
The complete rules for the CO2 Conversion Challenge can
be found at: https://www.co2conversionchallenge.org/.
Nanette Smith,
NASA Federal Register Liaison Officer.
[FR Doc. 2019-20483 Filed 9-20-19; 8:45 am]
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