Retrievable and Reusable Nanoparticle-Pinched Polymer Brushes Enable Highly Efficient Microalgae Dewatering for Cost-Effective Biofuel Production

可回收和可重复使用的纳米颗粒挤压聚合物刷可实现高效微藻脱水，从而实现具有成本效益的生物燃料生产

• 批准号: 1623240
• 负责人: Hongjun Liang
• 金额: $ 2.61万
• 依托单位: Texas Tech University Health Science Center
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-01 至 2017-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1623240&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Retrievable; Reusable; Nanoparticle; Pinched; Polymer

1160291LiangVarious analyses based on the production rate and environmental considerations have suggested that biofuels from microalgae are likely the only realistic substitute capable of releasing our reliance on fossil fuels. Despite decades of effort, commercial production of microalgae-derived biofuels has not emerged because current technologies for microalgae dewatering add a huge cost to the final product, and present a major barrier between algaculture and biofuels. A knowledge gap exists in the underlying principles governing microalgae dewatering, particularly for the rational design of coagulation agents. The long-term goal of the proposed work is to understand the underlying principles that govern the stability of a colloidal suspension of living cells, and to direct the phase separation of free-floating cells in a controllable fashion. The overall objective of this proposal is to identify the rational correlations between inter-algal pair interactions and coagulation-agent structures in order to achieve highly efficient microalgae dewatering at a negligible cost. The central hypothesis is that nanoparticle-pinched polymer brushes, i.e., radiating polymer chains covalently bonded to a nanoparticulate core, are far more effective in dewatering microalgae than conventional flocculants; in addition, using solid-state nanoparticles allows low-cost operations (e.g., using magnetic fields) to be designed to collect algal biomass and retrieve the coagulation agents for multiple cycles of microalgae dewatering, which further reduces the operational cost significantly. We have formulated this hypothesis based on our strongly supportive preliminary data. The rationale underlying the proposed research is that, once the structural characteristics responsible for the unusually high performance of this novel coagulation agent are understood, precise control of its structure is expected to enable unprecedentedly cost-effective microalgae dewatering. Hence the bottleneck preventing commercialization of microalgae-derived biofuels will be cleared. We plan to test our central hypothesis and accomplish the overall objective of this application by pursuing the following three specific aims: 1. Identify a facile and highly efficient approach to synthesize paramagnetic nanoparticle-pinched polymer brushes with well-defined structures; 2. Determine how the microalgae dewatering efficiency is regulated by the structural characteristics of the coagulation agents; 3. Determine the efficiency of retrieving nanoparticle-pinched polymer brushes for continuous cycles of microalgae growth and dewatering. The expected contribution of this work is to determine the structural characteristics of engineered coagulation agents that endow them with an unusually high efficiency in microalgae dewatering and an unusually low operational cost. This contribution is significant, because it creates a class of super coagulation agents via examining rational correlations between inter-algal pair interactions and flocculants of well-defined structures. This aspect has been poorly understood despite decades of relentless trial-and-error experiments with commercially available chemicals. Energy and environment represent the top challenges for the sustainable development of our societies. It is well understood that securing renewable energy sources is the grand challenge of our time, but it is not always recognized that any engineered material proposed to address that challenge must be sustainable itself, an example is the design of microalgae coagulation agent in this application. The researchers plan to bring broad societal awareness on this aspect with the following integrated activities: Incorporating research into teaching. The assembled research team will be a nucleus to enhance biofuel research at Mines by giving seminars, developing course materials, and attracting industry sponsorship. The PI will build a webpage devoted to microalgae harvesting issues, and disseminate the video clips of microalgae dewatering experiments to Youtube to advertise sustainable materials for sustainable energy; Outreach to Underrepresented Groups. The researchers plan to build a focused and sustainable outreach program by developing lecture materials and classroom demonstration experiments on algal biofuels, which will be used by the PI and his graduate students, to participate in an existing outreach program at Mines that spans grades kindergarten through the twelfth in two school districts, Adams County District 50 (AC50) and Meeker County (MC). Both school districts are rurally located and have a high proportion of students who are living in poverty

基于生产率和环境考虑的1160291Liangvarious分析表明，微藻的生物燃料可能是唯一能够释放我们对化石燃料的依赖的现实替代品。尽管努力了数十年，但微藻衍生的生物燃料的商业生产并未出现，因为当前的微藻脱水技术为最终产品增加了巨大的成本，并在算法和生物燃料之间呈现了一个主要的障碍。知识差距存在于管理微藻脱水的基本原则中，特别是对于凝血剂的合理设计。拟议工作的长期目标是了解控制活细胞胶体悬浮液的稳定性的基本原理，并以可控制的方式指导自由浮动细胞的相位分离。该提案的总体目的是确定阿尔加尔层间相互作用与凝血结构之间的合理相关性，以便以微不足道的成本实现高效的微藻脱水。中心假设是纳米颗粒夹的聚合物刷，即，与纳米核心核心共价键合的辐射聚合物链比传统的絮凝剂更有效地脱水微藻。此外，使用固态纳米颗粒允许设计低成本操作（例如，使用磁场）来收集藻类生物量并检索凝结剂以降低微藻脱水的多个循环，从而进一步降低了操作的成本。我们基于我们强烈支持性的初步数据提出了这一假设。所提出的研究的基本原理是，一旦理解了这种新型凝血剂异常高性能的结构特征，预计对其结构的精确控制就可以实前具有成本效益的微藻脱水。因此，将清除防止微藻衍生的生物燃料商业化的瓶颈。我们计划通过追求以下三个特定目的来检验我们的中心假设，并实现本应用的总体目标：1。确定一种带有明确定义的结构的顺磁性纳米粒子夹式聚合物刷合成的副磁性纳米粒子夹的方法； 2。确定微藻脱水效率如何受凝结剂的结构特征调节； 3。确定检索纳米颗粒夹的聚合物刷的效率，以使微藻生长和脱水的连续循环。这项工作的预期贡献是确定工程凝结剂的结构特征，这些凝血剂的结构特征使它们具有异常高的微藻脱水效率和异常低的操作成本。这种贡献是重要的，因为它通过检查脉冲对相互作用与定义明确结构的絮凝剂之间的合理相关性创造了一类超级凝血剂。尽管数十年来对市售化学物质进行了数十年的无情反复试验实验，但该方面的理解很少。能源和环境是我们社会可持续发展的主要挑战。众所周知，确保可再生能源是我们这个时代的巨大挑战，但是并不总是认识到，提议应对该挑战本身的任何工程材料本身都必须是可持续的，一个例子就是该应用程序中微藻凝血剂的设计。研究人员计划通过以下综合活动提高对这一方面的广泛社会意识：将研究纳入教学。组装的研究团队将是一个核心，通过举办研讨会，开发课程材料并吸引行业赞助来增强矿山的生物燃料研究。 PI将构建一个专门用于微藻收集问题的网页，并将微藻脱水实验的视频片段传播到YouTube上，以宣传可持续的材料以实现可持续能源；向代表性不足的团体推广。研究人员计划通过开发针对藻类生物燃料的讲座材料和课堂演示实验来建立一项重点和可持续的外展计划，PI及其研究生将使用该计划，以参加在矿山的现有外展计划，该计划跨越了两家Adams County 50（Ac50）（AC50）和Meekerer Courty（Mecerecerer County），该计划通过两名矿山进行幼儿园（Mec）。这两个学区的位置都是乡村地区，并且有很高的生活在贫困中的学生

项目成果

Hydrophilic Phage-Mimicking Membrane Active Antimicrobials Reveal Nanostructure-Dependent Activity and Selectivity

• DOI: 10.1021/acsinfecdis.7b00076
• 发表时间: 2017-09-01
• 期刊: ACS INFECTIOUS DISEASES
• 影响因子: 5.3
• 作者: Jiang, Yunjiang;Zheng, Wan;Liang, Hongjun
• 通讯作者: Liang, Hongjun

Spontaneous Microalgae Dewatering Directed by Retrievable, Recyclable, and Reusable Nanoparticle-Pinched Polymer Brushes

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.9b00336
• 发表时间: 2019-07-09
• 期刊: CHEMISTRY OF MATERIALS
• 影响因子: 8.6
• 作者: Kuang, Liangju;Goins, Jason;Liang, Hongjun
• 通讯作者: Liang, Hongjun