Microwave Enhanced Catalytic Production of Biofuels

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CBET-0756663ConnerBiofuels can currently be produced from a variety of natural feedstocks. The production of ethanol from sugars in corn or sugar cane is well developed. The conversion of vegetable oils to diesel fuel or fuel additives is typically being implemented on a batch-wise basis based on recycling used and fresh vegetable oils as feeds. The production of biofuels must be a highly optimized and efficient process to be economically competitive with fossil fuel resources. Therefore, it is critical that conversion processes be developed that consume minimal amounts of energy. Microwave heating has been shown to be tremendously advantageous by decreasing the energy requirements for a number of reactions including organic/inorganic syntheses, polymerization, polymer processing, pharmaceutical syntheses, etc. Microwave heating for transesterification of vegetable oil to produce biodiesel has an amazing order of magnitude decrease in the reaction time and energy compared to conventional heating methods. At the same time as the Biochemical solutions are being pursued at an ever increasing rate, there is considerable evidence that other routes may exist to produce practical biofuels employing new heterogeneous catalytic processes. Microwave enhancements of other heterogeneous catalytic reactions have been demonstrated and we have recently confirmed that heterogeneous catalysts also work for BioDiesel production. The focus of this research is to study the combination of biofuels synthesis reactions using microwave heating employing heterogeneous catalysts. An interdisciplinary combination of heterogeneous catalysis, Biofuels process development and microwave reactor engineering will be employed in these studies.This proposal focuses on the conversion of natural products to liquid fuels, a timely area of research. This research will combine the application of microwave engineering with heterogeneous catalysts to facilitate these processes. Two processes will be studied: transesterification of vegetable oil and aqueous phase reforming of sugars. These reactions are catalyzed by acid/base and/or supported metal catalysts. We will employ reaction modification with in situ vibrational and UV spectroscopies to unravel the differences in microwave enhancement mechanisms for these systems.More efficient biofuels production is certainly a crucial area for study. Heterogeneous catalysts enhanced by microwave energy have the potential to improve the efficiency and selectivity of these conversions significantly. This includes the development of continuous processes for biofuels production. At the same time, the microwave reactor engineering and mechanistic understanding will be developed. Graduate students from different disciplines will interact in this interdisciplinary research. We have already developed a undergraduate laboratory experiment on biofuels conversion. Further, we will continue to develop and to reach out to High School students to teach them about microwaves and microwave chemistry.