SBIR Phase I: Development and Validation of Palladium Supported on Hierarchically Porous Monolithic Carbon Catalysts

这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目将开发持久的、分层多孔的单片碳催化剂支架，大大减少了贵金属催化剂的负载，同时提高了化学制造商的催化效率。在当前和新的化学工艺技术中，需要更好的催化剂来提高产量、产量和纯度。该技术所提供的各种长度尺度的高孔隙率允许反应物和催化剂之间更紧密地接触，减少所需贵金属催化剂的数量，同时提高催化剂性能，避免因催化剂活性、选择性和完整性丧失而导致昂贵的工艺中断和关闭。这些碳载体通过最大化分散性和减小催化剂纳米颗粒的尺寸来实现这一目标，从而延长了使用寿命并提高了性能。在这个一期项目中，公司将进一步开发这种催化剂，确定它可以增强的工业相关化学反应，并将其与现有催化剂的有效性进行比较。所涉及的研究将为在实验室和中试规模的固定床反应器中测试催化剂提供必要的数据。该项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力在于，正在开发的分层多孔单片碳催化剂有望成为一种更持久的催化剂，并更有效地利用有限的贵金属资源。这种更活跃的催化剂可以降低化学反应的操作温度，从而减少能源的使用，并使产品的杂质更少，需要更少的净化步骤。因此，成功将影响化学工业的生态和商业可持续性。要测试的催化剂代表了第一种新型分层多孔催化剂载体，因此进一步验证这种新产品将为引入具有这些优越性能的广泛催化剂类别提供基础。如果成功，这种新型催化剂的生产将继续下去，从而在美国创造就业机会。该技术的早期采用者可以预期更少的化学反应器停机时间和更高的化学品产量，从而增加营业收入，使他们比竞争对手具有明显的优势。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop long lasting, hierarchically porous monolithic carbon catalyst supports that require greatly reduced precious metal catalyst loadings while improving the catalytic efficiency for chemical manufacturers. There is an ever present need for better catalysts to increase throughput, yields, and purity in current and new chemical process technologies. The high porosity at various length scales afforded by the proposed technology allows for more intimate contact between the reactants and catalyst, reducing the amount of precious metal catalyst needed while also enhancing catalyst performance avoiding expensive process upsets and shutdowns due to loss of catalyst activity, selectivity and integrity. These carbon supports accomplish this by maximizing the dispersity and decreasing the size of the catalyst nanoparticles, resulting in longer lifetimes and improved performance. In this Phase I project the company will further develop this catalyst, identify industrially relevant chemical reactions that it enhances, and compare the effectiveness to currently available catalysts. The research involved will provide the necessary data needed to test the catalyst in lab and pilot scale fixed bed reactors. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is that the hierarchically porous monolithic carbon catalyst being developed promises a longer lasting catalyst with more efficient utilization of precious metals, a limited resource. This more active catalyst can lower the operating temperature in chemical reactions thereby decreasing energy usage and giving products with fewer impurities, requiring a smaller number of purification steps. Success will therefore impact both ecological and commercial sustainability in the chemical industry. The catalyst to be tested represents the first of a new class of hierarchically porous catalyst supports and so further validation of this new product will provide the foundation for introduction of a broad class of catalysts with these superior properties. If successful, manufacturing of this new class of catalysts will be pursued, leading to job creation in the United States. The early adopters of this technology can expect less chemical reactor downtime and increased chemical production, resulting in increased operating income giving them a clear advantage over their competitors.