STTR Phase I: Effect of Alcohol Concentration on Lactic to Acrylic Selectivity and Deactivation Rate over Na-FAU Zeolite Catalysts

STTR 第一阶段：酒精浓度对 Na-FAU 沸石催化剂上乳酸至丙烯酸的选择性和失活率的影响

• 批准号: 2151176
• 负责人: Christopher Nicholas
• 金额: $ 25.6万
• 依托单位: LAKRIL TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-04-01 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2151176&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: STTR; Phase; Effect; Alcohol; Concentration

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is to commercialize a process to produce low carbon, bio-based acrylic acid and acrylates for paints, coatings, adhesives, and superabsorbent polymer markets. This $10 billion market has been seeking a bio-based, low-carbon alternative for decades, with economics serving as the major barrier. This project’s high yield lactic-to-acrylic technology will help grow the corn utilization industry and provide high paying jobs across rural America as well as economic competitiveness in global markets. Every plant constructed to convert lactic acid fermented from sugar into drop-in, low-carbon, renewable acrylic acid is estimated to bring $12 million in economic activity to a county with significant bio-based sugar crops (e.g., corn, beets, cane). Approximately 250 plants are needed at this scale to convert today’s petrochemical acrylic acid to a bio-based source.This STTR Phase I project proposes to utilize high alcohol content feedstocks using catalyst innovation comprising engineered amine treatment of cation-exchanged zeolites. The catalyst has been shown to outperform numerous previously-utilized catalysts with 90% yields of acrylic products during catalyzed dehydration of lactic acid. So far, those in the field have investigated feeds containing aqueous solutions of methyl lactate or lactic acid in concentrations from 10-40%. Methanol has not been used as a co-feed in concentrations greater than 5%, therefore this project will investigate higher concentrations of alcohols (5%-80%, using methanol or ethanol). The project will use both methanol and ethanol as the alcohol size is likely to alter active site reactivity and/or shift the equilibrium of esterified versus acidic acrylate products. These experiments address two areas of concern in the commercialization of the technology and determine the relative dehydration rates of ethanol and lactic acid under competitive adsorption conditions to provide foundational information required for reactor scaling. The proposed research also increases the percentage of alkyl acrylates formed by forcing the gas phase esterification of acrylic acid with alcohol towards completion.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.

该小企业技术转让 (STTR) 第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是将生产低碳、生物基丙烯酸和丙烯酸酯的工艺商业化，用于油漆、涂料、粘合剂和高吸水性聚合物市场。这个价值 100 亿美元的市场几十年来一直在寻求生物基低碳替代品，但经济问题是主要障碍。该项目的高产乳酸制丙烯酸技术将有助于发展玉米利用行业，并为美国农村地区提供高薪就业机会以及全球市场的经济竞争力。每一座用于将糖发酵乳酸转化为直接、低碳、可再生丙烯酸的工厂预计将为拥有大量生物糖作物（例如玉米、甜菜、甘蔗）的县带来 1200 万美元的经济活动。大约需要 250 座这种规模的工厂才能将当今的石化丙烯酸转化为生物基来源。该 STTR 第一阶段项目建议通过催化剂创新（包括对阳离子交换沸石进行工程胺处理）来利用高酒精含量原料。该催化剂已被证明优于许多以前使用的催化剂，在乳酸催化脱水过程中丙烯酸产品的产率为 90%。到目前为止，该领域的技术人员已经研究了含有浓度为10-40%的乳酸甲酯或乳酸水溶液的饲料。甲醇用作浓度不超过 5% 的共进料，因此该项目将研究更高浓度的醇（5%-80%，使用甲醇或乙醇）。 该项目将使用甲醇和乙醇，因为醇尺寸可能会改变活性位点反应性和/或改变酯化与酸性丙烯酸酯产品的平衡。这些实验解决了该技术商业化中关注的两个领域，并确定了竞争吸附条件下乙醇和乳酸的相对脱水速率，以提供反应器结垢所需的基础信息。拟议的研究还增加了通过迫使丙烯酸与醇的气相酯化完成而形成的丙烯酸烷基酯的百分比。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。