SBIR Phase I: Intensification of propylene oxide manufacture via solid-catalyst design

SBIR 第一阶段：通过固体催化剂设计强化环氧丙烷生产

• 批准号: 1746827
• 负责人: Alexander Okrut
• 金额: $ 22.5万
• 依托单位: Berkeley Materials Solutions
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-01-01 至 2019-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1746827&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Intensification; propylene; oxide

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project aims to develop a delaminated zeolite-based catalyst to facilitate more economical and environmentally friendly propylene-oxide (PO) production. PO is a commodity chemical with a $5.6B/year market. The two current pain points for PO producers are (i) that the currently used industrial catalyst lacks long-term stability under the harsh conditions at the tail-end of the PO synthesis reactor, and (ii) as a result of catalyst deficiency, that the process to manufacture PO consumes an extra $140M of raw materials per year, separate from the problem in (i) above. Berkeley Materials Solutions developed a catalyst for the tail-end of the PO synthesis reactor that nearly eliminates both of these problems. The catalyst allows for nearly 100% conversion of all raw material into PO, which leads to $145 M/year of additional revenue for PO producers, corresponding to a revenue increase of 8.6%. This increased revenue comes at no additional cost since it is a drop-in replacement. In addition, there are significant energy efficiency improvements associated with recovering the currently lost raw material in the PO synthesis process, which amounts to a CO2 footprint of ~740 kilo tons of CO2 per year worldwide.The intellectual merit of this project will be represented by the development of a generalizable crystalline catalyst platform to replace existing amorphous catalysts. Technical hurdles that will be addressed in the proposal are (i) the successful delamination of a layered zeolite precursor using a swelling method and sonication, (ii) establishing a sonication-free scalable delamination method for layered zeolite precursors, and (iii) the insertion of catalytically active heteroatom sites into the delaminates frameworks. If successful, this will enable the economical production of these zeolite catalysts for application in the PO synthesis reactor under flow conditions. The targeted scales even during Phase I activities are large enough to enable testing in collaboration with industrial partners who manufacture propylene oxide at large scales. These test results will be used to optimize the prototype catalyst. The results from Phase I activities will help to uncover other possible opportunities to use delaminated zeolites as highly efficient catalysts for chemical manufacturing.

这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目旨在开发一种分层的沸石基催化剂，以促进更经济和环保的环氧丙烷（PO）生产。 PO是一种商品化学品，市场规模为56亿美元/年。 PO生产商目前的两个痛点是（i）目前使用的工业催化剂在PO合成反应器末端的苛刻条件下缺乏长期稳定性，和（ii）由于催化剂不足，制造PO的方法每年消耗额外的1.4亿美元的原材料，与上述（i）中的问题分开。 Berkeley Materials Solutions开发了一种用于PO合成反应器末端的催化剂，几乎消除了这两个问题。该催化剂可将所有原材料几乎100%转化为PO，为PO生产商带来1.45亿美元/年的额外收入，相当于收入增长8.6%。这种增加的收入没有额外的成本，因为它是一个下降的替代品。 此外，通过回收PO合成工艺中目前损失的原材料，可显著提高能源效率，这相当于全球每年约740千吨CO2的CO2足迹。该项目的智力价值将体现在开发一种可推广的结晶催化剂平台，以取代现有的非晶催化剂。该提案中将解决的技术障碍是（i）使用溶胀方法和超声处理成功分层沸石前体，（ii）建立用于分层沸石前体的无超声处理的可扩展分层方法，和（iii）将催化活性杂原子位点插入分层框架中。如果成功的话，这将使得能够经济地生产这些沸石催化剂，用于在流动条件下的PO合成反应器中。即使在第一阶段活动期间，目标规模也足够大，可以与大规模生产环氧丙烷的工业合作伙伴合作进行测试。这些测试结果将用于优化原型催化剂。 第一阶段活动的结果将有助于发现使用分层沸石作为化学制造的高效催化剂的其他可能机会。

项目成果

Understanding the role of Zn2+ in surfactant-free layered silicate delamination: Exfoliation of magadiite

• DOI: 10.1016/j.micromeso.2019.03.048
• 发表时间: 2019-07
• 期刊: Microporous and Mesoporous Materials
• 影响因子: 5.2
• 作者: A. Okrut;Nicolás A. Grosso‐Giordano;Christian Schöttle;S. Zones;Alexander Katz

SSZ-70 borosilicate delamination without sonication: effect of framework topology on olefin epoxidation catalysis.

• DOI: 10.1039/c8dt03044h
• 发表时间: 2018-10
• 期刊: Dalton transactions
• 影响因子: 4
• 作者: A. Okrut;M. Aigner;Christian Schöttle;Nicolás A. Grosso‐Giordano;Son-Jong Hwang;X. Ouyang;S. Zones;Alexander Katz