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

该项目涉及沸石领域的一项技术突破的商业化。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种新的技术平台，可能会颠覆用于烷基化反应的传统沸石催化剂。分层沸石是由常规沸石剥离而成的一类新型材料。这类新材料已被证明比三维材料具有更高的催化活性。该项目的目标是将脱层沸石商业化，作为芳烃烷基化反应的催化剂。与传统的非分层催化剂相比，所建议的分层沸石催化剂在芳香烷基化反应中的活性提高了四倍，与其他工业催化剂(如MCM-22)相比，活性提高了一倍。使用所建议的分层分子筛材料时，催化剂性能的改善预计将减少能源消耗，从而降低用于合成聚合物的分子前体的成本，如乙苯。

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.