Integrating Polar-Aprotic Solvolysis into Waste-To-Energy Conversion

垃圾发电（WTE）技术提供了有前途的解决方案，以减轻与在废水处理过程中产生的城市固体废物（MSW）填埋相关的环境问题，同时促进资源和能源回收。然而，这些技术受到组合的MSW组合物的不均匀混合的关键影响。对于这些WTE技术，使用MSW可能引起的一些问题包括污染的产品、低产品价值、加工过程中的污染物排放、反应器堵塞、腐蚀和催化剂中毒。本项目的目标是开发一种混合城市生活垃圾的预处理工艺，以生产生物炼制化学品，更高质量的合成气或热解油，以及更少的污染副产物。该项目的成功将带来一种创新的绿色废物转化技术，将不可回收的城市固体废物转化为家庭能源和有价值的化学品，从而通过减少城市固体废物堆填区的压力造福社会。除了从丰富的城市固体废物中生产高质量的合成气或热解油外，生产生物炼制化学品还可以降低生物炼制的原料成本，提高生物炼制的经济可持续性，同时减少国家对化石燃料的依赖。混合的城市固体废物可以由近60%的纤维素废物组成，使这些废物成为低成本生物炼制化学品的潜在来源。本研究提出了两步转化，以回收这些废物中的多糖的经济价值，以及从这些废物中生产更好质量的合成气或热解油产品。所提出的方法，以适当地整合极性非质子溶剂分解预处理的混合城市固体废物与随后的热转化气化或热解将转化为资产，增加产品价值和减少污染物排放的城市固体废物材料的有害特性。具体而言，所提出的方法将利用污染物酸作为催化剂和原料水分作为共溶剂来生产生物精炼化学品以及更清洁和更高BTU的合成气或热解油。通过使用可回收的生物基绿色溶剂，所提出的方法的环境和经济效益将进一步提高。拟议的研究的主要重点是获得新的见解之间的相互依赖性的溶剂预处理，生物炼制化学品的选择性，合成气/热解油的质量，以及污染物的形成和运输的MSW转化。研究成果将提供重要的基本机制和见解有关所需的反应，产品运输和产品回收过程中的极性非质子溶剂为基础的混合有机和合成废料的转换。在这项研究中获得的知识将为开发一种新的非回收混合城市固体废物的WTE战略奠定坚实的基础，以实现高质量的产品，同时减少污染物。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Waste-To-Energy (WTE) technologies offer promising solutions to alleviate environmental problems associated with landfilling of Municipal Solid Wastes (MSW) generated during wastewater treatment processes while promoting resource and energy recovery. However, these technologies are crucially affected by the uneven mixing of combined MSW compositions. Some of the possible problems caused by the use of MSW for these WTE technologies include contaminated products, low product values, pollutant emission during processing, reactor clogging, corrosion, and catalyst poisoning. The objective of this project is to develop a pretreatment process for combined MSW to produce biorefinery chemicals, higher quality syngas or pyrolysis oil, and fewer pollution byproducts. The success of the project could lead to an innovative green WTE technology that can convert non-recyclable MSW to a domestic source for energy and valuable chemicals, thus, benefiting society by reducing the pressure of MSW landfills. Producing biorefinery chemicals, in addition to high-quality syngas or pyrolysis oil from abundant MSW, can provide an opportunity to lower the feedstock cost in biorefining and improve the economic sustainability of biorefineries while reducing the Nation's dependency on fossil fuels. Co-mingled MSW can consist of nearly 60% cellulosic wastes, making these wastes a potential source of low-cost biorefinery chemicals. This research proposes a two-step conversion to recover the economic value from the polysaccharides in these wastes as well as to produce better quality syngas or pyrolysis oil products from these wastes. The proposed approach to properly integrate polar-aprotic solvolysis pretreatment of co-mingled MSW with subsequent thermal conversion by gasification or pyrolysis will transform the detrimental characteristics of MSW materials into assets that increase product values and reduce pollutant emissions. Specifically, the proposed approach will utilize the contaminant acids as catalysts and the feedstock moisture as a co-solvent to produce biorefinery chemicals in addition to cleaner and higher BTU syngas or pyrolysis oil. The environmental and economic benefits of the proposed approach will be further enhanced by the use of recyclable biobased green-solvents. The main focus of the proposed research is to gain new insights into the interdependency among the solvent pretreatment, the selectivity of biorefinery chemicals, the quality of syngas/pyrolysis oil, and contaminant formation and transport on MSW conversion. The research outcomes will provide important fundamental mechanisms and insights pertinent to the required reactions, product transport, and product recovery during the polar-aprotic solvent-based conversion of co-mingled organic and synthetic waste materials. The knowledge obtained during this research will lay a strong foundation for the development of a novel WTE strategy for non-recycled co-mingled MSW to achieve high-quality products while reducing pollutants.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.