Research Initiation Award: Investigation on Tribo-charging Behavior of Agricultural Particles in the Development of Water-free Bio-separation Approach for Biomass Residues

研究启动奖为历史悠久的黑人学院和大学的初级和职业生涯中期教师提供支持，他们正在建立新的研究计划或重新定向和重建现有计划。预计该奖项有助于进一步提高教师的研究能力和有效性，改善所在机构的研究和教学，并让本科生参与研究经验。该项目寻求开发一种新的方法，根据农业生物质残留物的静电特性而不是大小和密度来分离它们。传统的湿法净化富含蛋白质的生物质残渣需要大量的水和能量，而且由于脱水所需的pH变化和温度影响，蛋白质的天然功能会丢失。该项目将采用摩擦静电技术，将磨碎的农业残渣气动转移到沸腾床储存库中，面粉中的蛋白质和纤维颗粒将通过与床壁的碰撞和/或颗粒间的接触而被带电到不同的水平，然后在电场的影响下被分离。长期的研究目标是扩大摩擦静电分离(TES)技术在分离木质纤维生物质残渣中的应用，进一步评估其摩擦带电行为，并调查生产生物燃料的馏分的质量。此外，这些原则可能被用于食品粉末包衣以及固体药物剂型的包衣，以避免在传统的液体包衣技术中使用有机溶剂。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Research Initiation Awards provide support for junior and mid-career faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities who are building new research programs or redirecting and rebuilding existing programs. It is expected that the award helps to further the faculty member's research capability and effectiveness, improves research and teaching at the home institution, and involves undergraduate students in research experiences. The project seeks to develop a new method of separating agriculture biomass residues based on their electrostatic properties rather than size and density. Conventional wet processes to the purification of protein-rich biomass residues require large amounts of water and energy and the native functionality of the proteins is lost due to pH changes and temperature effects required for dehydration. This project will employ a tribo-electrostatic technique to pneumatically transfer milled agricultural residues into a fluidized bed reservoir where protein and fiber particles in the flour will be charged to different levels through collisions with the wall of the bed and/or interparticle contact, before being separated under the influence of an electric field. The long-term research goals are to expand the application of tribo-electrostatic separation (TES) technology to fractionate lignocellulosic biomass residues to further evaluate their tribo-charging behavior and to investigate the quality of the produced fractions for biofuel production. Moreover, these principles can be potentially used for food powder coating as well as coating solid pharmaceutical dosage forms to eliminate the use of organic solvents during conventional liquid coating technologies.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.