CAREER: Modeling and Optimization of Next Generation Feedstock Development for Chemical Process Industry

1055974 Cremaschi知识专长：生物质在化学加工工业（CPI）摆脱化石原料方面具有巨大的潜力。作为一种可再生和本地可用的资源，生物质作为CPI原料的使用将通过支持农业部门和促进CPI未来的创新和增长，对美国经济产生协同效应。从目前基于化石燃料的CPI向利用生物质原料的未来CPI的转变将需要CPI和政府为技术开发进行大量的研究开发（R D）和资本投资。有机会研究这些投资将如何影响生物质原料系统的发展。该教师早期职业发展（CAREER）项目的研究目标是开发能够预测研发影响的新型模型和计算方法&和资本投资决策（投资多少、投资哪种技术以及何时投资）关于CPI原料开发的生物质转化技术的演变。该系统的两个特点，不确定的决策依赖的内生技术演化和博弈论问题，限制了现有的表示和方法的适用性。借鉴研发管道管理和图论，PI提出了两个框架来分析这个问题。首先，PI将调查这些框架的投资问题的有效性方面的四个标准：容易扩展性，通用性，能够代表不同技术的不确定的演变路径，并服从社区维护和扩展。PI下一步将开发基于模拟的优化方法来解决投资问题，假设政府和CPI代理之间有完美的信息共享。最后，PI将开发一个基于代理的框架，在基于代理的框架中嵌入基于模拟的优化方法作为决策模型，并研究当任何一方都无法获得完整信息时，博弈论问题对投资决策的影响。本研究旨在研究生物质到商品化学品的投资决策问题，这将导致技术发展和进化问题的代表性的进步，具有外源性和内源性不确定性的随机优化问题的大规模解决能力，以及对博弈论问题如何影响新技术发展和进化的基本理解，特别是对于生物质原料系统。教育计划的总体目标是整合研究和教育，并通过培养学生的系统级思维，为工程劳动力和科学界的多样性做出贡献。这些目标将通过以下方式实现：1。将需要并促进系统级思维和跨学科工作的研究主题和项目整合到传统的工程本科课程中，2.扩展本科/研究生课程，风险管理和优化（由PI开发），并将本研究的项目整合到课程中。每年至少有两名本科生参与和指导这个研究项目，利用两个成功的独特的校园范围内的顶点计划，促进学生参与原创研究计划，和4。招聘和指导至少两名全日制研究生，他们将攻读化学工程的高级学位。生物质原料转化的进展可能导致从杂交和种子工程到肥料和其他农业技术到经典化学催化的进步。由于对美国国家和经济安全的重要性以及发展复杂的生物质原料系统的各种选择，这项工作具有科学，技术和社会影响的潜力。除了通过科学出版物和在国家和国际会议上传播研究结果外，还将通过万维网向社会提供所开发的模型。

1055974CremaschiIntellectual Merit:Biomass has great potential for weaning the chemical process industries (CPI) from fossil basedfeedstocks. As a renewable and locally available resource, the use of biomass as a CPI feedstock will have a synergistic effect on the U.S. economy by supporting the agricultural sector and promoting future innovation and growth of the CPI. The switch from current fossil fuel based CPI to a future CPI that utilizes biomass feedstock will require substantial amounts of research & development (R&D) and capital investments for technology development both by the CPI and the government. There is opportunity for investigating how these investments will impact the evolution of the biomass feedstock system.The research objective of this Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project is to develop novel models and computational methods that are capable of predicting the impact of R&D and capital investment decisions (how much to invest and in which technology and when) on the evolution of biomass conversion technologies for CPI feedstock development. Two characteristics of this system, uncertain decision-dependent endogenous technology evolutions and game theoretic issues, limit the applicability of existing representations and methods. Drawing analogies to the R&D pipeline management and graph theory, the PI proposes two frameworks to analyze this problem. First, the PI will investigate the effectiveness of these frameworks for the investment problem with respect to four criteria: easy scalability, universality, ability to represent the uncertain evolution paths of different technologies, and amenability to community upkeep and expansion. The PI will next develop simulation-based optimization approaches to the investment problem assuming perfect information sharing among the government and CPI agents. Lastly, the PI will develop an agent-based framework embedding simulation-based optimization approach as decision models in the agent-based framework and investigate the impact of game-theoretic issues on the investment decisions when complete information is not available to any party. This research to study the biomass-to commodity chemicals investment decision problem should lead to advances in representation of technological developments and evolution problems, large-scale solution capability of stochastic optimization problems with exogenous and endogenous uncertainties, and fundamental understanding of how game theoretic issues impact new technology development and evolution, particularly for the biomass feedstock system.Broader Impacts:The overarching goals of the education plan are to integrate research and education and contribute to the diversity of the engineering workforce and scientific community by training students in systems-level thinking. These goals will be achieved by:1. Integrating research themes and projects that require and promote systems-level thinking and interdisciplinary work into traditional engineering undergraduate curriculum courses,2. Expanding the undergraduate/graduate-level course, Risk Management and Optimization (developed by the PI) and integrating projects from this research into the course,3. Engaging and mentoring at least two undergraduate students per year in this research project utilizing two successful unique campus wide capstone programs that promote student participation in original research programs, and4. Recruiting and supervising at least two full time graduate students who will pursue advanced degrees in chemical engineering. Advances in biomass feedstock conversion could lead to advances ranging from hybrid and seed engineering, to fertilizer and other agricultural techniques, to classical chemical catalysis. Because of the importance to U.S. national and economic security and the range of options available for evolving a complex biomass feedstock system, this work has potential for scientific, technical and societal impact. In addition to the dissemination of the results via scientific publications and at national and international meetings, the developed models will be made available for the use of the community through the World Wide Web.