Melt-processing of Enzymes into Bio-catalytic Polymer Membranes for Carbon Dioxide Remediation

这笔赠款支持有助于开发先进制造方法的研究，以便能够从工业废气中捕获二氧化碳。温室气体是推动气候变化的主要因素，二氧化碳是人类产生的最有害的废物之一。目前的二氧化碳封存技术是能源密集型和低效的。这项研究开发了一种制造碳捕获膜的工艺，这种膜廉价、节能、可扩展，以满足日益增长的社会需求。这项研究依赖于聚合物熔融加工，这是一种塑料制造技术，能够大规模生产最常见的塑料产品。这项创新是使用熔融加工将生化催化剂或酶整合到塑料薄膜中，以隔离二氧化碳。酶法二氧化碳捕集在室温下进行，生成易于储存的固体碳盐，从而大大减少了能源需求。这项研究的结果极大地造福了社会，因为气候变化是工程学上的一项重大挑战，因此有助于确保国家的繁荣和安全。这项研究是多学科的，包括聚合物科学、化学工程、材料科学和生物化学。进行这项研究的学生都是在科学前沿培养出来的，这对国家产生了长期积极的影响--S的科技产出。考虑到酶的快速周转次数、用于固定的能量输入最少以及将碳固定为固体盐的能力，使用碳酸酐酶作为二氧化碳捕获催化剂是很有前途的。碳酸酐酶广泛应用的限制因素是要求可伸缩性和重复性的制造挑战。目前的酶固定化过程采用间歇操作模式，依赖于对固体载体的吸附或非特异性化学反应，限制了可伸缩性和重复性。这项研究开发了将碳酸酐酶结合到可大规模制造的可渗透聚合物膜中的连续制造方法。实现这一目标的主要障碍是对碳酸酐酶在熔融挤出过程中保持稳定性和活性的工艺条件有一个基本的了解。这个项目试图了解加工过程中的主要应激源，温度和剪切力，并将它们与酶的性能相关联。一旦建立了这种关系，结果就被用于放大聚合物膜生产到双螺杆挤出机，类似于商业薄膜制造中使用的那些。这些膜在模拟工业废气复杂混合物的环境中进行二氧化碳通量、隔离和耐用性评估。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。

This grant supports research that contributes to the development of advanced manufacturing methods to enable the capture of carbon dioxide from industrial waste gases. Greenhouse gases are the principal factor driving climate change and one of the most detrimental human-derived waste products is carbon dioxide. Current technologies to sequester carbon dioxide are energy intensive and inefficient. This research develops a process to manufacture carbon-capture membranes that are inexpensive, energy efficient, and scalable to meet this growing societal need. The research relies on polymer melt-processing, a plastic manufacturing technique that enables the large-scale production of most common plastic goods. The innovation is using melt-processing to integrate biochemical catalysts or enzymes into plastic membranes to sequester carbon dioxide. Enzymatic carbon dioxide capture occurs at room temperature to produce solid carbon salts which can be easily stored, thus greatly reducing the energy demand. The outcome of this research greatly benefits society, since climate change is a grand challenge in engineering, and, thus, is instrumental in securing the prosperity and security of the country. This research is multi-disciplinary and includes polymer science, chemical engineering, materials science, and biochemistry. Students conducting this research are trained at the forefront of science, which has a long-term positive impact on the nation?s technological output. The use of carbonic anhydrase as a carbon dioxide capture catalyst is promising given the enzymes rapid turnover number, minimal energy input for sequestration and ability to sequester carbon into solid salts. The limiting factor for applying carbonic anhydrase broadly is a manufacturing challenge that requires scalability and reproducibility. Current enzyme immobilization processes operate in batch mode and rely on adsorption or non-specific chemical reactions to a solid support, limiting scalability and reproducibility. This research develops continuous manufacturing methods to incorporate carbonic anhydrase into permeable polymer membranes that can be fabricated at large scale. The primary hurdle in accomplishing this goal is to develop a fundamental understanding of processing conditions under which carbonic anhydrase maintains stability and activity during melt-extrusion. This project seeks to understand the main stressors, temperature and shear, during processing and correlate these to enzyme performance. Once this relationship has been established, the results are used to scale-up polymer membrane manufacture to twin-screw extruders, similar to those used in commercial film manufacturing. These membranes are evaluated for carbon dioxide flux, sequestration, and durability in environments that mimic complex mixtures of industrial waste gases.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.