I-Corps: Catalytic Membrane Reactor for Commercial Production of Biomass-Derived Fuel and Fuel Additives

I-Corps：用于生物质衍生燃料和燃料添加剂商业化生产的催化膜反应器

• 批准号: 1954437
• 负责人: Ranil Wickramasinghe
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of Arkansas
• 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: 2020-02-01 至 2022-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1954437&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Catalytic; Membrane; Reactor; Commercial

The broader impact of this I-Corps project is to develop an alternative source of renewable energy and chemicals to help address the worldwide increasing demands for energy. It will provide a new and abundant source of renewable energy and chemical intermediates with long-term effects. Development of these platform chemicals from renewable cheaper resources, such as waste crops, can impact the economics of the chemical industry by leveraging new starting materials. Technology breakthroughs from this work will enable broader adoption of bio-based products.This I-Corps project is based on the development of technology for production of platform chemicals using a catalytic membrane reactor. The technology focuses on simultaneous catalytic hydrolysis, dehydration, and rehydration of renewable biomass to bio-based platform chemicals and biofuels. The feed used in this technology is lignocellulosic biomass instead of conventional monomers as starting materials accounting for significant feedstock cost reduction. The competitive thermochemical and enzyme-based technology have major disadvantages such as high energy demand, high cost of enzymes, and involves multiple complex processing steps. Further, comparative chemical conversion processes use corrosive acids or expensive ionic liquids which are unacceptable with present day industrial norms. The technology uses non-toxic, inexpensive, robust, and easily regenerable enzyme-mimicked catalyst efficiently catalyzes multiple reactions with high desired product yield using carefully selected solvent system. Furthermore, the proposed technology is intensified using membrane process that helps in simultaneous catalysis and separation of the products shifting the thermodynamic equilibrium preventing product decomposition. Previous fundamental research has shown that the proposed catalytic membrane can convert both cellulose and hemicellulose part of the biomass, which opens the possibility of future developments that focus on production of multiple other products.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.

I-Corps项目的更广泛影响是开发可再生能源和化学品的替代来源，以帮助解决全球日益增长的能源需求。它将提供一个新的和丰富的可再生能源和具有长期影响的化学中间体来源。从可再生的廉价资源（如废弃作物）开发这些平台化学品，可以通过利用新的起始材料来影响化学工业的经济效益。这项工作的技术突破将使生物基产品得到更广泛的采用。I-Corps项目的基础是开发使用催化膜反应器生产平台化学品的技术。该技术的重点是可再生生物质的同步催化水解、脱水和再水化，以生产生物基平台化学品和生物燃料。该技术中使用的饲料是木质纤维素生物质，而不是传统的单体作为起始原料，这大大降低了原料成本。热化学和酶基技术的主要缺点是能量需求高、酶的成本高、涉及多个复杂的加工步骤。此外，比较化学转化过程使用腐蚀性酸或昂贵的离子液体，这与目前的工业规范是不可接受的。该技术使用无毒，廉价，坚固，易于再生的酶模拟催化剂，使用精心选择的溶剂体系，有效催化多种反应，获得高期望的产物收率。此外，所提出的技术是加强使用膜过程，有助于同时催化和分离的产物改变热力学平衡，防止产物分解。先前的基础研究表明，所提出的催化膜可以转化生物质的纤维素和半纤维素部分，这为未来发展的可能性打开了大门，重点是生产多种其他产品。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。