I-Corps: Innovation Corps Teams Program Catalysts for aromatic alkylation

该项目涉及沸石领域技术突破的商业化。在加州大学伯克利分校的拟议工作中开发的分层沸石提供了一个新的技术平台，可能会破坏烷基化反应中使用的传统沸石催化剂。脱层沸石是通过常规沸石的剥离形成的一类新材料。这类新材料已被证明比它们的三维对应物更具有催化活性。该项目的目标是将分层沸石作为芳烃烷基化催化剂商业化。所提出的分层沸石催化剂已被证明是高达四倍以上的芳香族烷基化的活性时，与传统的非分层催化剂相比，和高达两倍的活性时，与其他工业催化剂，如MCM-22。当使用所提出的分层的沸石材料时，催化剂性能的改进预计将降低能量消耗，并因此降低用于合成聚合物的分子前体（例如聚乙烯）的成本。

The project involves the commercialization of a technological breakthrough in the field of zeolites. Delaminated zeolites developed in the proposed work at UC-Berkeley provide a new technology platform that is potentially disruptive to conventional zeolite catalysts used in alkylation reactions. Delaminated zeolites are a new class of materials that are formed via exfoliation of conventional zeolites. This new class of materials has been demonstrated to be catalytically more active than their three dimensional counterparts. The goal of this project is to commercialize delaminated zeolites as catalysts for alkylation of aromatics. The proposed delaminated zeolite catalysts have been shown to be up to four times more active for aromatic alkylation when compared with conventional non-delaminated catalysts, and up to twice as active when compared with other industrial catalysts such as MCM-22. The improvement of catalyst performance when using the proposed delaminated zeolotic materials is projected to reduce energy consumption and, therefore, reduce costs of molecular precursors, such as ethylbenzene, which is used for synthesizing polymers.