INSPIRE: Engineering Sustainable Bio-adhesives from Algae for the Built Environment

该INSPIRE项目由ENG董事会的CMMI和CBET部门，OISE和综合活动办公室共同资助。这项INSPIRE研究研究了使用适当平衡的生物质来源组合来生产建筑生物粘合剂的优点。使用的生物质来源主要是在污水和废水处理厂设施中培养的藻类、木质生物质和动物粪便。该项目同时将环境可持续性指标纳入生物粘合剂设计过程，以实现专注于建筑环境的可持续发展。考虑到石油基粘合剂的严重短缺，这种生物粘合剂最容易进入的市场预计是建筑环境，如建筑物，道路和桥梁。应该指出的是，在过去十年中，由于其供应量大幅减少，建筑环境中经常使用的石油基粘合剂（如沥青）的价格急剧上涨。因此，欧盟和美国正在开发的生物粘合剂可能是减少建筑行业对石油基粘合剂（如沥青）依赖的解决方案。此外，INSPIRE项目中提出的生物粘合剂的生产可以作为一种从生物质废物中封存碳的手段，否则这些废物将随着生物质的腐烂而释放回大气中。因此，与通常被认为是碳中性的生物质的自然衰变相反，生物粘合剂过程是碳负的，因为来自生物质的超过60%的碳将被捕获在生物粘合剂中。 生物粘合剂将从生物质资源中发现的一系列分子物种中生产，特别是在废水处理厂生长和收获的藻类，同时整合环境可持续性指标以及健康和安全方面。将使用热化学液化过程，然后进行溶剂萃取、过滤和真空蒸馏，以从适当平衡的生物质原料中提取一系列分子结构。密度泛函理论和分子动力学模拟沿着多尺度实验表征将用于通知具有理想性能的生物粘合剂的合成和工程。分子水平的洞察力将提供对结构-性能关系的深入理解，以定制生物粘合剂的性能，以适应可持续的建筑环境，同时促进生物经济和资源保护。

This INSPIRE project is jointly funded by the CMMI and CBET Divisions in the ENG Directorate, OISE, and the Office of Integrative Activities. This INSPIRE research studies the merits of using suitably balanced combinations of bio-mass sources to produce construction bio-adhesive. The biomass sources to be used are mostly algae cultivated in sewage and wastewater treatment plant facilities, woody biomass, and animal manure. The project simultaneously integrates environmental sustainability metrics into the bio-adhesive design process to enable sustainable developments focusing on the built environment. Considering the significant shortage of petroleum-based adhesives, the most accessible market for such bio-adhesives is envisioned to be the built environment such as building, roads and bridges. It should be noted that the price of petroleum-based adhesives such as bitumen often used in the built environment has been increasing dramatically within the last decade as its supplies have been shrinking significantly. Accordingly, bio-adhesives which are being developed in the EU and US could be a solution to reduce dependence of the construction industry on petroleum-based adhesives such as bitumen. In addition, production of bio-adhesives as proposed in this INSPIRE project can be a means of sequestering carbon from bio-mass waste which will be otherwise released back to the atmosphere as bio-mass decays. Therefore, in contrast to natural decay of bio-mass which is typically considered to be carbon neutral, the bio-adhesive process is carbon negative because more than 60% of carbon from bio-mass will be trapped in the bio-adhesive. Bio-adhesives will be produced from an array of molecular species found in bio-mass resources specially algae grown and harvested in wastewater treatment plants while simultaneously integrating environmental sustainability metrics as well as health and safety aspects. A thermochemical liquefaction process will be used, followed by solvent extraction, filtration and vacuum distillation to extract an array of molecular structures from a suitably balanced biomass feedstock. Density functional theory and molecular dynamics simulations along with multi-scale experimental characterization will be used to inform synthesis and engineering of bio-adhesive with desirable performance. Molecular level insights will provide in-depth understanding of structure-property relationship to tailor bio-adhesives' performance for the sustainable built environment while promoting bio-economy and resource conservation.