SBIR Phase I: Economic Feasibility of ABFX Process

这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目将展示一种更有效、更经济的方法，从木质纤维素生物质中提取化学和能源资源。现有的木质纤维素预处理技术使用各种化学物质、热能和机械能中的任何一种，将难水解的木质素从纤维素中分离出来，将半纤维素酶解成糖，将糖发酵成酒精，或在厌氧消化的情况下将其转化为沼气。使用化学品或在高温高压下操作决定了预处理的成本。这项研究将研究一种在低温和低压下预处理木质纤维素生物质而不使用化学物质的过程。该过程以非常低的能量输入运行，并且可以由废热驱动。这个项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力将是采用一种经济的方法，有效地从生物质中提取能源和化学资源。预处理过程将用于从木质纤维素生物质生产液体和气体燃料。该过程将通过增加转化为可再生能源的生物质的百分比来减少生物质加工产生的废物残留物。潜在市场包括利用能源作物或作物残茬生产液体和气体燃料的农业企业，如生物精炼厂、配备厌氧消化器的农场、堆肥设施、市政和工业固体废物设施、密闭动物饲养作业（cafo）和用于消费前和消费后固体废物处理的生物精炼厂。这一过程有望降低生物能源生产的成本，从而改善其使用，同时减少温室气体排放。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will demonstrate a more effective and economical process for extracting the chemical and energy resources from lignocellulosic biomass. Existing lignocellulosic pretreatment technologies use any of a variety of chemicals, heat, and mechanical energy to separate the poorly hydrolyzed lignin from the cellulose, and hemicellulose for enzymatic hydrolysis to sugars, and fermentation of sugars to alcohol, or in the case of anaerobic digestion to biogas. The use of chemicals, or operation at high temperatures and pressures dictate the cost of pretreatment. This research will investigate a process that pretreats lignocellulosic biomass at low temperature and pressure without the use of chemicals. The process operates with very low energy inputs and may be driven by waste heat. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project will be the adoption of an economical process for the efficient extraction of energy and chemical resources from biomass. The pretreatment process will be used for the production of liquid and gaseous fuels from lignocellulosic biomass. The process will be used to reduce waste residuals from biomass processing by increasing the percentage of the biomass converted to renewable energy. Potential markets include agricultural enterprises that produce liquid and gas fuels from energy crops or crop residues, such as bio-refineries, farms with anaerobic digesters, composting facilities, municipal and industrial solid waste facilities, confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and bio-refineries for pre and post consumer solid waste processing. The process is expected to lower the cost of bioenergy production and thereby improve its use while reducing GHG emissions.