I-Corps: Aerogels - A Catalyst for Cleaner Air

I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发气凝胶基催化剂，作为一种可持续的、环保的材料，用于减轻污染。这些材料可以减少甚至消除目前用于汽车尾气后处理系统的昂贵贵金属，如铂、钯和铑的使用。因此，气凝胶催化剂可能会对这个国家的经济和环境产生重大的积极影响。这些新材料的商业化将扩大污染控制系统工程师的设计空间，从而为满足当前和未来的污染法规开辟新的、潜在的变革途径。此外，该项目将使本科生能够发展创业理念，并了解如何将通过基础研究开发的技术推向市场。I-Corps项目将探索催化气凝胶的商业机会。气凝胶是一种具有非凡性能的材料，包括异常高的表面积、低密度、低导热性和在高温下稳定的纳米孔结构。气凝胶可以使用快速超临界萃取方法制备，并根据不同的催化金属种类（如铜、钴、钒和氧化铝）进行定制。这一领域的研究重点是开发制造不同类型催化气凝胶的方法，并测试其在减轻污染方面的应用效果。铜-氧化铝气凝胶在模拟汽车尾气条件下的催化测试表明，它们能够将未燃烧的碳氢化合物、氮氧化物和一氧化碳转化为危害较小的气体。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to develop aerogel-based catalysts as a sustainable, environmentally friendly material for pollution mitigation applications. These materials could reduce or even eliminate the use of expensive precious metals such as platinum, palladium and rhodium that are currently used in automotive exhaust after-treatment systems. Thus, aerogel catalysts could have a significant positive economic and environmental impact on this nation. Commercialization of these novel materials will extend the design space available to pollution-control system engineers, and hence open new, potentially transformative, avenues for meeting current and future pollution regulations. In addition, this project will enable undergraduate students to develop entrepreneurial ideas and learn what is involved in bringing technology developed through fundamental research to the marketplace.This I-Corps project will explore commercial opportunities for catalytic aerogels. Aerogels are materials with remarkable properties, including unusually high surface area, low density, low thermal conductivity and a nanoporous structure that is stable at high temperatures. Aerogels can be fabricated using a rapid supercritical extraction method and tailored to contain different catalytic metal species such as copper, cobalt, vanadia and alumina. Research in this area is focused on developing methods for making different types of catalytic aerogels and on testing their effectiveness in pollution mitigation applications. Catalytic testing of copper-alumina aerogels under simulated automotive exhaust conditions has demonstrated that they are capable of converting unburned hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide into less harmful gases.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.