GOALI: Promotion Mechanisms of Supported Ag/Al2O3 Catalysts for Selective Ethylene Epoxidation

环氧乙烷（EO）是用于生产许多消费品（例如，医院和医疗设备、药品、洗涤剂、防冻剂、塑料等热敏工具的灭菌）以及许多非消费性化学品。对EO的巨大需求使其成为产量最高的化学品之一，美国的产量领先于世界其他地区。EO催化剂市场竞争激烈，由于其产量大，催化剂效率的小幅提高带来了可观的利润。这个NSF资助机会学术联络与工业（GOALI）项目建立了科学设计公司之间的合作，公司。(SDCI，一家国内小型EO催化剂制造商和工程工艺设计商）和利哈伊大学（LU，一家具有领先催化剂研究能力的研究机构）。SDCI-LU合作伙伴关系将推进EO技术的科学和工程，并将基础研究活动注入一家小型美国制造公司。成功的结果将降低环氧乙烷的生产成本，增加美国制造业的就业机会，并减少不必要的CO2排放。虽然银催化剂的乙烯氧化多年来受到了广泛关注，只有少数研究的作用，对工业型氧化铝负载的银催化剂的性能（促进剂提高环氧乙烷的选择性从~50 ~~90%）。SDCI-LU合作伙伴关系将专注于对氧化铝负载银催化剂促进机制的分子水平理解，以建立基本的结构-活性/选择性关系和微观动力学模型，指导催化剂和工艺改进。SDCI将在工业反应条件下制备和测试催化剂，LU学生参与这些活动，SDCI研究人员和工程师将共同监督LU研究生。LU拥有最先进的仪器和专业知识，可在反应条件下进行催化剂表征（原位和操作光谱）。实验研究将与前沿的理论建模研究相辅相成，这将有助于理解催化剂结构和组成如何影响活性和EO选择性的基本原理。这些新的和前所未有的基本见解准备揭示助剂的氧化铝负载银催化剂的EO的作用，并建立一个基于分子的动力学模型，促进氧化铝负载银催化剂的乙烯氧化。SDCI-LU合作伙伴关系将培训和教育从代表性不足的群体中招募的学生，使学生和教师接触工业催化剂开发和工程，并使工业研究人员和工程师接触现代催化和工程研究。所产生的信息将通过演讲、出版物、网站、整合到LU课程中以及针对代表性不足的群体的几项外展活动在整个科学界广泛传播。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得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来支持。

Ethylene oxide (EO) is a major industrial chemical intermediate used for the production of many consumer products (e.g., sterilization of heat sensitive tools in hospitals and medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, detergents, antifreeze, plastics, etc.) as well as numerous non-consumer chemicals. The great demand for EO makes it one of the highest production volume chemicals with US production leading the rest of the world. The catalyst market for EO is highly competitive with small increases in catalyst efficiency accounting for significant profits due to its large production volume. This NSF Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) project establishes collaboration between Scientific Design Company, Inc. (SDCI, a small domestic EO catalyst manufacturer and engineering process designer) and Lehigh University (LU, a research institution with leading edge catalyst research capabilities). The SDCI-LU partnership will advance science and engineering of EO technology and infuse fundamental research activities into a small US manufacturing company. Successful outcome will reduce ethylene oxide manufacturing cost, increase US manufacturing jobs, and reduce undesirable CO2 emissions.Although silver catalysts for ethylene oxidation have received much attention over the years, there have been only a handful of studies on the role of promoters on the performance of industrial-type alumina-supported silver catalysts (promoters increase the EO selectivity from ~50 to ~90%). The SDCI-LU partnership will focus on the molecular level understanding of the promotion mechanisms for alumina-supported silver catalysts to establish fundamental structure-activity/selectivity relationships and microkinetic models to guide catalyst and process improvements. SDCI will prepare and test the catalysts under industrial reaction conditions, with LU students involved in these activities, and SDCI researchers and engineers will jointly supervise the LU graduate students. LU has state-of-the-art instrumentation and expertise for catalyst characterization under reaction conditions (in situ and operando spectroscopy). The experimental studies will be complemented with cutting edge theoretical modeling studies that will allow understanding the fundamentals of how catalyst structure and composition affect activity and EO selectivity. Such new and unprecedented fundamental insights are poised to reveal the role of promoters on alumina-supported silver catalysts for EO and establish a molecular-based kinetic model for ethylene oxidation by promoted alumina-supported silver catalysts. The SDCI-LU partnership will train and educate students that will recruited from underrepresented groups, expose students and faculty to industrial catalyst development and engineering, and expose industrial researchers and engineers to modern catalysis and engineering research. The information to be generated will be widely disseminated throughout the scientific community by presentations, publications, websites, and integration into LU curricula and several outreach activities to underrepresented groups.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.