GOALI: Promotion Mechanisms of Supported Ag/Al2O3 Catalysts for Selective Ethylene Epoxidation

环氧乙烷（EO）是一种主要的工业化学中间体，用于生产许多消费品（例如，医院和医疗设备中热敏工具的灭菌、药品、洗涤剂、防冻剂、塑料等）以及许多非消费品化学品。对EO的巨大需求使其成为产量最高的化学品之一，美国的产量领先世界其他地区。EO的催化剂市场竞争激烈，由于产量大，催化剂效率的小幅提高可以带来可观的利润。美国国家科学基金学术联络机会（GOALI）项目建立了科学设计公司（SDCI，国内小型EO催化剂制造商和工程工艺设计师）和里海大学（LU，具有领先催化剂研究能力的研究机构）之间的合作。SDCI-LU的合作伙伴关系将推进EO技术的科学和工程，并为一家小型美国制造公司注入基础研究活动。成功的结果将降低环氧乙烷的制造成本，增加美国制造业的就业机会，并减少不受欢迎的二氧化碳排放。虽然近年来银催化剂的乙烯氧化作用受到了广泛的关注，但关于促进剂对工业型铝负载银催化剂性能的影响（促进剂将EO选择性从~ 50%提高到~90%）的研究却很少。SDCI-LU的合作伙伴关系将侧重于在分子水平上了解氧化铝负载银催化剂的促进机制，以建立基本的结构-活性/选择性关系和微动力学模型，以指导催化剂和工艺改进。SDCI将在工业反应条件下制备和测试催化剂，由卢学生参与这些活动，SDCI的研究人员和工程师将共同指导卢研究生。LU拥有最先进的仪器和反应条件下催化剂表征的专业知识（原位和操作光谱）。实验研究将辅以前沿的理论建模研究，以了解催化剂结构和组成如何影响活性和EO选择性的基本原理。这些新的、前所未有的基本见解将揭示促进剂在氧化铝负载银催化剂上的作用，并建立一个基于分子的氧化铝负载银催化剂氧化乙烯的动力学模型。SDCI-LU合作伙伴关系将培训和教育学生，这些学生将从代表性不足的群体中招募，使学生和教师接触工业催化剂开发和工程，并使工业研究人员和工程师接触现代催化和工程研究。所产生的信息将通过演讲、出版物、网站和纳入大学课程以及向代表性不足的群体进行的一些外联活动在整个科学界广泛传播。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Ethylene oxide (EO) is a major industrial chemical intermediate used for the production of many consumer products (e.g., sterilization of heat sensitive tools in hospitals and medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, detergents, antifreeze, plastics, etc.) as well as numerous non-consumer chemicals. The great demand for EO makes it one of the highest production volume chemicals with US production leading the rest of the world. The catalyst market for EO is highly competitive with small increases in catalyst efficiency accounting for significant profits due to its large production volume. This NSF Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) project establishes collaboration between Scientific Design Company, Inc. (SDCI, a small domestic EO catalyst manufacturer and engineering process designer) and Lehigh University (LU, a research institution with leading edge catalyst research capabilities). The SDCI-LU partnership will advance science and engineering of EO technology and infuse fundamental research activities into a small US manufacturing company. Successful outcome will reduce ethylene oxide manufacturing cost, increase US manufacturing jobs, and reduce undesirable CO2 emissions.Although silver catalysts for ethylene oxidation have received much attention over the years, there have been only a handful of studies on the role of promoters on the performance of industrial-type alumina-supported silver catalysts (promoters increase the EO selectivity from ~50 to ~90%). The SDCI-LU partnership will focus on the molecular level understanding of the promotion mechanisms for alumina-supported silver catalysts to establish fundamental structure-activity/selectivity relationships and microkinetic models to guide catalyst and process improvements. SDCI will prepare and test the catalysts under industrial reaction conditions, with LU students involved in these activities, and SDCI researchers and engineers will jointly supervise the LU graduate students. LU has state-of-the-art instrumentation and expertise for catalyst characterization under reaction conditions (in situ and operando spectroscopy). The experimental studies will be complemented with cutting edge theoretical modeling studies that will allow understanding the fundamentals of how catalyst structure and composition affect activity and EO selectivity. Such new and unprecedented fundamental insights are poised to reveal the role of promoters on alumina-supported silver catalysts for EO and establish a molecular-based kinetic model for ethylene oxidation by promoted alumina-supported silver catalysts. The SDCI-LU partnership will train and educate students that will recruited from underrepresented groups, expose students and faculty to industrial catalyst development and engineering, and expose industrial researchers and engineers to modern catalysis and engineering research. The information to be generated will be widely disseminated throughout the scientific community by presentations, publications, websites, and integration into LU curricula and several outreach activities to underrepresented groups.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.