RUI: Collaborative Research: Greener Processes for the Sustainable Development of Bio-Based Polyesters

RUI：合作研究：生物基聚酯可持续发展的绿色工艺

• 批准号: 1934368
• 负责人: Lindsay Soh
• 金额: $ 16.2万
• 依托单位: Lafayette College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1934368&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RUI; Collaborative; Research; Greener; Processes

The development of green separation and processing strategies to produce bio-based polymers is beneficial to ensure environmentally sustainable materials for future generations. Current monomer production methods typically use petroleum and require hazardous processes. Biomass offers diverse alternate starting materials for polymer chemistries. However, current strategies for isolating monomers from biomass and their polymerizations are limited and often not sustainable in practice. The development of sustainable bio-based polymers requires a holistic approach that tackles key sustainability issues associated with monomer sourcing and extraction, polymer creation, and end-point feedback. This project seeks to utilize residual biomass sources, green extraction techniques, and appropriate polymer syntheses to incorporate structurally rigid monomers (i.e. pentacyclic triterpenols) into the backbones of polymer networks and elucidate the fundamental relationship between processing, structure, and properties of these polyesters derived from natural feedstocks. Key considerations include the methodologies by which feedstocks are sourced, separated, and subsequently translated into useful polymers. Ultimately, knowledge gained will provide impetus for and education in the transformation of bio-refined products into macromolecules that meet the diverse needs of society.Specific objectives target a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-property relationships of bio-based polymers derived from green separation techniques. The project will holistically consider the choice of feedstock, extraction technique, polymer synthesis, and polymer degradation to ultimately produce environmentally sustainable processes and products. An iterative approach will use sustainability metrics throughout and will evaluate these metrics to determine the overall process viability from economic and environmental perspectives. By integrating process sustainability metrics into traditional processing-structure-property relationship methodology used in polymer development, the approach will shift the conventional polymer design paradigm to comprehensively address both polymer function and sustainability via the following interconnected, concurrent aims: (I) Leverage green solvent extraction to produce enriched monomer fractions from renewable feedstocks, (II) Sustainably develop polyester thermoplastics and thermosets derived from fractionated biomass, and (III) Evaluate process technoeconomic and life cycle sustainability.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.

发展绿色分离和加工策略来生产生物基聚合物有利于确保材料的环境可持续性。目前的单体生产方法通常使用石油，并且需要危险的过程。生物质为聚合物化学提供了多种替代原料。然而，目前从生物质中分离单体及其聚合的策略是有限的，在实践中往往是不可持续的。可持续生物基聚合物的发展需要一个整体的方法来解决与单体来源和提取、聚合物创造和终点反馈相关的关键可持续性问题。该项目旨在利用剩余的生物质资源、绿色提取技术和适当的聚合物合成，将结构刚性单体（即五环三萜）纳入聚合物网络的骨干，并阐明这些来自天然原料的聚酯的加工、结构和性能之间的基本关系。关键的考虑因素包括原料的来源、分离和随后转化为有用聚合物的方法。最终，所获得的知识将为将生物精制产品转化为满足社会多样化需求的大分子提供动力和教育。具体目标是对绿色分离技术衍生的生物基聚合物的加工-结构-性能关系的基本理解。该项目将全面考虑原料、提取技术、聚合物合成和聚合物降解的选择，最终生产出环境可持续的工艺和产品。迭代方法将自始至终使用可持续性指标，并将从经济和环境的角度评估这些指标，以确定整个过程的可行性。通过将过程可持续性指标整合到聚合物开发中使用的传统加工-结构-性能关系方法中，该方法将改变传统的聚合物设计范式，通过以下相互关联的并发目标全面解决聚合物功能和可持续性问题：(1)利用绿色溶剂萃取从可再生原料中生产富集的单体馏分；(2)可持续地开发来自分馏生物质的聚酯热塑性塑料和热固性塑料；(3)评估工艺技术经济和生命周期的可持续性。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。