I-Corps: New Selective Oxidation Catalysts to Reduce Energy Requirements and Waste Products

选择性氧化是制造医药产品、塑料、实验室化学品和工业流体的化学中间体的重要过程。然而，其中一些选择性氧化过程消耗大量的能量并产生废物副产物。I-Corps项目的重点是在有机基质选择性氧化过程中减少副产品和能源需求的技术。提出的创新旨在通过使用分子氧作为氧化剂而不使用共还原剂来提高选择性氧化效率。分子氧是理想的氧化剂，因为它便宜，而且容易在空气中获得。对于许多具有挑战性的底物，现有的催化剂不能使用分子氧作为氧化剂，除非使用共还原剂。然而，使用共还原剂会产生副产物。本项目的目的是研究逐步无还原剂（SNR）技术的市场可行性。SNR是一种正在申请专利的计算设计的催化剂系统和反应过程，可以减少能源需求和浪费副产品。提出的创新将新设计的锆有机金属催化剂整合到逐步无还原剂（SNR）工艺中，将选择性氧化过程扩展到更具挑战性的有机基质，而不需要共还原剂，也不会产生副产物。这些锆金属有机催化剂通过臭氧中间体促进高效的分子氧活化。催化剂原型将在I-Corps项目中合成。在I-Corps培训计划期间，该团队将采访潜在客户，以收集有助于未来商业化的市场反馈。这种市场反馈将提供有价值的信息，说明哪些化学产品可以从拟议的创新中获益最多。这种市场反馈还将确定潜在的开发伙伴并评估定价模式。将利用这些信息构建商业化计划。

Selective oxidation is an important process used to make chemical intermediates for pharmaceutical products, plastics, laboratory chemicals, and industrial fluids. However, some of these selective oxidation processes consume large amounts of energy and produce waste by-products. This I-Corps Project focuses on a technology to reduce co-products and energy requirements during selective oxidation of organic substrates. The proposed innovation aims to improve selective oxidation efficiency by using molecular oxygen as the oxidant without using a co-reductant. Molecular oxygen is the ideal oxidant, because it is cheap and readily available in air. For many challenging substrates, existing catalysts cannot use molecular oxygen as the oxidant unless a co-reductant is used. However, using a co-reductant produces a co-product. The purpose of this project is to investigate the marketability of step-wise no-reductant (SNR) technology. SNR is a patent-pending computationally designed catalyst system and reaction process that could reduce energy requirements and waste by-products. The proposed innovation incorporates newly designed zirconium organometallic catalysts into stepwise no-reductant (SNR) processes to extend the selective oxidation process to more challenging organic substrates without requiring a co-reductant and without producing a co-product. These zirconium organometallic catalysts facilitate efficient molecular oxygen activation by passing through ozone intermediates. A catalyst prototype will be synthesized during the I-Corps project. During the I-Corps training program, the team will interview potential customers to gather market feedback that will aid future commercialization. This market feedback will provide valuable information on which chemical products could benefit the most from the proposed innovation. This market feedback will also identify potential development partners and evaluate pricing models. A commercialization plan will be constructed using this information.