Thermodynamics of Ternary Water/Polymer/Solute Systems: Understanding in situ product removal in biobunatol production

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DuPont's Growth Strategy is based on Technology Leadership in 3 areas: Agriculture and Nutrition, Industrial Biosciences, and Advanced Materials. In recognition of relevant expertise at Queen's, DuPont has committed funds and resources for a CRD project that focuses on the latter 2 competencies, specifically in the areas of biofuels and advanced polymers. A signature initiative at DuPont is the development of a process to produce the biofuel butanol. The major bottleneck of this process is the toxicity of the butanol itself to the microorganisms that produce it. A very promising technology platform, developed by the PI, allows for the in situ removal of biomolecules from the fermentation vessel itself. Although the PI has also demonstrated that inexpensive commercial polymers (such as those produced by DuPont) can, in theory, achieve such targeted bioproduct removal, this has never been demonstrated for butanol, a molecule notoriously difficult to remove from aqueous fermentation media. We propose to utilize first principles thermodynamic methods to predict which types of polymers could achieve butanol removal, to confirm these predictions experimentally, and to provide a demonstration of concept for the improved production of biobutanol utilizing the identified polymers. The successful completion of this work will advance DuPont's understanding of polymer-solute interactions, will potentially improve their biobutanol production technology, and will identify new markets (in biotechnology) for their advanced materials.