BRIGE: Cellulose saccharification observed in real-time in a high-temperature microreactor - research and outreach

技术说明：尽管多年的努力，将木质纤维素原料分解成小分子结构单元仍然非常昂贵。 一个主要的挑战是木质纤维素生物质的主要组分纤维素是高度结晶的，并且对大多数酶和生物分解技术是不可接受的。 因此，需要昂贵和能源密集的预处理步骤，以将生物质转化为适合酶分解成组成糖的形式-一个称为糖化的过程。 提高预处理效率可以大大降低生物燃料生产的资本成本。 由于预处理条件苛刻-酸性，温度通常高于100 °C，因此阻碍了这方面的进展。 因此，预处理反应器通常不是光学可访问的，并且绝大多数预处理研究只能评估预处理过程完成后实现的最终效果。 出于这个原因，关于如何设计、放大和操作预处理反应器的工程数据缺乏关于固体生物质相在预处理反应期间如何随时间响应的信息。 在这项工作中，我们将使用一个高温微反应器的实时研究纤维素脱结晶，在整个预处理过程中的一个重要步骤。 该微反应器将与一个光学透明的玻璃窗，将允许纤维素颗粒进行脱羧反应的显微镜和光谱监测。 具体来说，我们计划使用在线拉曼显微镜，以遵循脱羧和糖形成的反应时，纤维素被加热的酸的存在下发生。 这些数据将被用来开发详细的工程模型，可用于设计和优化大型预处理reactors.Broader意义和重要性：从这项研究的结果将有助于降低转化为燃料，化学品和材料的木质纤维素生物质的成本。 纤维素是世界上最丰富的碳源。 因此，利用纤维素作为生产燃料、化学品和材料的原料将减少对石油这种不可再生资源的依赖。 利用生物质纤维素目前成本过高，这主要是由于将纤维素转化为可转化为简单碳水化合物的形式所需的昂贵的预处理工艺。 预处理反应器目前的设计经验和数据和工程模型，在这个项目中开发将有助于反应器的设计和操作的基础知识，从而降低其costs.Broadening参与的弱势群体在工程：外联是一个综合组成部分，拟议的努力。 微反应器研究的主要数据产品将是一组振动频率，这是降解纤维素的特征。 与WPI人文系的合作者一起，我们将把振动数据转换成可听声音，这一过程称为“声化”。 在此之后，我们将开发一种算法，将振动“声音”重新调制成音乐形式。 鉴于振动数据集的预期结构，我们预计它将自然地最容易地转换为重复的、节拍驱动的音乐形式，如嘻哈音乐或电子音乐。 外联部分将招募研究生和本科生参加微反应器研究，开发嘻哈外联工具，并作为K-12外联的一部分担任导师和榜样。来自代表性不足的团体的当地教师将被邀请给外展学生讲座，提供额外的指导和榜样forum.This研究已通过扩大参与研究启动工程招标赠款资助，这是工程教育和中心司的工程项目的扩大参与的一部分。

Technical Description: Despite years of effort, breaking down lignocellulosic feedstocks into small molecule building blocks remains prohibitively expensive. A major challenge is that the primary component of lignocellulosic biomass, cellulose, is highly crystalline and recalcitrant to most enzymatic and biological decomposition techniques. As a result, expensive and energy intensive pre-treatment steps are required to convert biomass into a form that is amenable to enzymatic breakdown into constituent sugars -- a process termed saccharification. Making pre-treatment more efficient can greatly reduce the capital costs of biofuel production. Progress in this direction has been impeded by the fact that pre-treatment conditions are harsh -- acidic with temperatures typically greater than 100 °C. Pre-treatment reactors are therefore not typically optically accessible, and the vast majority of pre-treatment studies have only been able to evaluate end effects achieved after the pre-treatment process has been completed. For this reason, engineering data on how to design, scale-up, and operate pre-treatment reactors is lacking information on how the solid biomass phase responds over time during pre-treatment reactions. In this work, we will use a high-temperature microreactor for a real-time study of cellulose de-crystallization, an important step in the overall pre-treatment process. The microreactor will be constructed with an optically transparent pyrex window that will permit microscopic and spectroscopic monitoring of cellulose particles as they undergo decrystallization reactions. Specifically, we plan to use on-line Raman microscopy to follow decrystallization and sugar forming reactions that occur when cellulose is heated in the presence of acids. These data will be used to develop detailed engineering models that can be used to design and optimize large-scale pre-treatment reactors.Broader Significance and Importance:Results from this study will help decrease the costs of converting lignocellulosic biomass into fuels, chemicals, and materials. Cellulose is the world's most abundant carbon source. Hence, utilizing cellulose as a feedstock for production of fuels, chemicals, and materials will reduce reliance on petroleum, a non-renewable resource. Utilizing biomass cellulose is currently cost prohibitive, largely due to the expensive pre-treatment processes that are required to render cellulose into a form that can be converted into simple carbohydrates. Pre-treatment reactors are currently designed empirically and the data and engineering models developed in this project will contribute fundamental knowledge to reactor design and operation, thereby reducing their costs.Broadening Participation of Underpresented Groups in Engineering:Outreach is an integrated component of the proposed effort. The primary data product of the microreactor studies will be sets of vibrational frequencies that are characteristic of the degrading cellulose. With collaborators in the Humanities Department at WPI, we will convert the vibrational data into audible sounds, a process termed "sonification". Following this, we will develop an algorithm to re-modulate the vibrational "sounds" into a musical form. Given the anticipated structure of the vibrational data sets, we anticipate that it will naturally be converted most easily into repetitive, beat-driven, forms of music, such as hip-hop or techno. The outreach component will recruit graduate and undergraduate students to participate in the microreactor research, develop the hip-hop outreach tool, and to serve as mentors and role models as part of the K-12 outreach. Local faculty from underrepresented groups will be invited to give talks to the outreach students, providing an additional mentorship and role-model forum.This research has been funded through the Broadening Participation Research Initiation Grants in Engineering solicitation, which is part of the Broadening Participation in Engineering Program of the Engineering Education and Centers Division.