SBIR Phase I: Carbide-derived Carbon Adsorbents for Ammonia Filtration

这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是通过使用新型碳化物衍生碳（cdc）来改善对氨的呼吸保护。该项目的成果将改善工业工人、消防员和在工业环境和紧急情况下遇到氨的急救人员的安全和健康。目前的呼吸防护防毒面具试图通过将有毒气体吸附在吸附剂上来防止使用者吸入氨。由于吸附剂和氨之间的吸引力较差，市场上的吸附剂对氨的保护时间有限。cdc通过一种新的合成程序克服了这些限制，该程序在其结构中产生氨特异性活性位点以结合和捕获氨。对这些材料的研究将解锁必要的工具和方法，使这些吸附剂适应其他有毒气体。拟议的研发活动解决了呼吸防护市场的商业机会，预计全球市场规模为60亿美元，美国市场规模为24亿美元。该第一阶段研究项目的技术目标是合成可以轻松集成在过滤筒内的cdc，并与现有材料相比，提供对氨的保护时间增加一个数量级。cdc具有良好的性能，大量的研究活动已经投入到用于吸附应用的cdc的合成和表征上。然而，到目前为止，还没有这些材料的商业吸附应用。存在这种情况的部分原因是对选择性气体吸附位点的整合，粒度控制和热液稳定性的关注不够，所有这些都是本项目将解决的关键技术障碍。这一目标将通过合成和测试颗粒状cdc对空气中氨的选择性吸附，通过合成后修饰技术整合进一步的氨特异性活性位点，以及通过循环稳定性测试方法评估cdc的流体动力和热稳定性来实现。这个项目的结果将极大地加深我们对cdc在大粒径合成、长期稳定性和定制气体捕获活性位点方面的理解。预期的结果将大大促进氨过滤和其他商业分离应用的cdc。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is to improve respiratory protection against ammonia by using novel carbide-derived carbons (CDCs). The outcome of this project will improve the safety and health for industrial workers, firefighters, and first responders that encounter ammonia in industrial settings and emergency situations. Current respiratory protection gas masks attempt to prevent users from breathing ammonia by trapping the toxic gas on an adsorbent material. Adsorbents on the market provide limited protection time against ammonia due to poor attractive forces between the adsorbent and ammonia. CDCs overcome these limitations through a new synthesis procedure that creates ammonia-specific active sites within its structure to bind and trap ammonia. Research on these materials will unlock the tools and methods necessary to tailor these adsorbents to other toxic gases. The proposed R&D activities address a commercial opportunity within the respiratory protection market estimated to be a $6 billion market globally, and $2.4 billion market in the U.S. The technical objectives in this Phase I research project are to synthesize CDCs that can be easily integrated within a filter cartridge and to provide an order of magnitude increase in protection time against ammonia compared to current materials. CDCs have promising performance and an enormous amount of research activity has been devoted to the synthesis and characterization of CDCs for adsorptive applications. However, to date, no commercial adsorptive applications of these materials exist. This situation exists in part because insufficient attention has been paid to the integration of selective gas adsorption sites, control of particle size, and hydrothermal stability, all of which are key technical hurdles that will be addressed in this project. This goal will be accomplished by synthesizing and testing granular CDCs for selective adsorption of ammonia from air, integrating further ammonia-specific active sites via post-synthesis modification techniques, and evaluating hydrodynamic and thermal stability of CDCs through cyclical stability testing methods. The results from this project will significantly further our understanding of CDCs in terms of large particle size synthesis, long term stability, and tailored active sites for gas capture. The anticipated results would significantly further CDCs for ammonia filtration and other commercial separations applications.