SBIR Phase II: Novel Separation Technology for Cellulosic Sugar Biorefineries

这个小企业创新研究第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将是开发一种替代的、可再生的燃料和化学品路线，该路线以生物质为基础，不与粮食供应竞争。这一过程将使用玉米秸秆和林业残渣等未得到充分利用的原料来生产可发酵糖，这些糖可以转化为各种原材料和成品。该项目将增加对离子液体生物处理的科学了解，并有可能显著减少温室气体排放并刺激农村创造就业机会。该第二阶段研究项目的技术目标是开发一种将木质纤维素生物质转化为可发酵糖的综合工艺。该过程使用离子液体来溶解生物质，并通过简单而快速的反应高产率地提供单体糖。缺少的是一种负担得起的分离糖的方法，同时回收离子液体。在第一阶段，该项目展示了一种有效的糖回收战略。到第二阶段的前半部分，目标是将糖回收整合到工艺前端。将原料生物质用于净化糖和木质素的单元操作将在批量开环中进行，以关闭质量平衡，并为进一步的工艺开发设定基线。然后，加入离子液体清洗和烘干，闭合回路。到这个项目结束时，目标是展示一个稳定和高收益的过程，包括经过实验验证的技术经济预测，显示出前所未有的低资本和运营成本。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will be the development of an alternative, renewable route to fuels and chemicals that is based on biomass that does not compete with the food supply. The process will use underutilized feedstocks such as corn stover and forestry residue to produce fermentable sugars, which can be converted into various raw materials and finished products. The project will add to the scientific understanding of ionic liquid bioprocessing and has the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stimulate rural job creation.The technical objective of this Phase II research project is to develop an integrated process for converting lignocellulosic biomass into fermentable sugars. The process uses ionic liquids that dissolve biomass and afford monomeric sugars at high yields via a reaction that is both simple and fast. What is lacking is an affordable method for separating sugars while recycling the ionic liquid. In Phase I the project demonstrated an efficient strategy for sugar recovery. By the first half of Phase II the goal is to integrate sugar recovery into the process front end. Unit operations taking raw biomass to clean sugars and lignin will be performed in batch open loop in order to close mass balances and set a baseline for further process development. Then, the loop will be closed with the addition of ionic liquid cleaning and drying. By the end of this project, the objective is to demonstrate a stable and high-yielding process, including experimentally validated techno-economic projections showing unprecedentedly low capital and operating costs.