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8 CollaborationsNOTABLE Sharing access to national assets National labs exist partially to conduct research and development that falls outside the scope of industry or academia. Collaboration with entities beyond DOE expands access to public research assets and helps achieve nationally significant results. To enhance INLs commitment to working with university partnerships and collaborations with industry the lab launched a new Partnerships Directorate. This directorate helps share relevant capabilities to foster advanced scientific discovery and deploy new technologies for economic growth. Helping industry test new systems When DuPont wanted to evaluate higher value applications for its cellulosic ethanol coproducts it found a solution in DOEs Biomass Feedstock National User Facility BFNUF the most complete feedstock preprocessing RD facility in the world and its associated Process Demonstration Unit PDU. The PDU is a completely integrated pilot-scale biomass preprocessing system with a capacity of 2 to 5 tons per hour. Its capable of processing a variety of feedstocks including crop residues and grasses wood chips and logging residues and even municipal solid wastes to provide industrial feedstocks for testing and validation of conversion processes. The PDU was a natural choice for DuPont to test new processes and iron out potential unforeseen issues before taking on the costs of a full-scale production attempt itself. During 350 hours of operation over 10 weeks the test generated tons of a prototype product for DuPont. Researchers at the BFNUF have worked with more than a dozen companies to help address biomass and biofuel challenges so each company can take its products to the next level.