Melt-processing of Enzymes into Bio-catalytic Polymer Membranes for Carbon Dioxide Remediation

该补助金支持有助于开发先进制造方法的研究，以从工业废气中捕获二氧化碳。温室气体是推动气候变化的主要因素，而最有害的人类废物之一是二氧化碳。目前的二氧化碳封存技术是能源密集型的，效率低下。这项研究开发了一种制造碳捕获膜的工艺，这种膜价格低廉，节能，可扩展，以满足日益增长的社会需求。该研究依赖于聚合物熔融加工，这是一种塑料制造技术，可以大规模生产最常见的塑料制品。这项创新是利用熔融加工将生化催化剂或酶整合到塑料膜中，以隔离二氧化碳。酶法二氧化碳捕获在室温下发生，以产生易于储存的固体碳盐，从而大大降低了能源需求。这项研究的成果对社会有很大的好处，因为气候变化是工程领域的一个重大挑战，因此有助于确保国家的繁荣和安全。这项研究是多学科的，包括聚合物科学，化学工程，材料科学和生物化学。进行这项研究的学生是在科学的前沿，这对国家有长期的积极影响？的技术输出。使用碳酸酐酶作为二氧化碳捕获催化剂是有希望的，因为该酶具有快速的周转数、用于螯合的最小能量输入和将碳螯合到固体盐中的能力。广泛应用碳酸酐酶的限制因素是需要可扩展性和再现性的制造挑战。目前的酶固定化方法以分批模式操作，并且依赖于对固体支持物的吸附或非特异性化学反应，限制了可扩展性和再现性。这项研究开发了连续制造方法，将碳酸酐酶纳入可大规模制造的可渗透聚合物膜。在实现这一目标的主要障碍是发展一个基本的理解加工条件下，碳酸酐酶保持稳定性和活性在熔融挤出。该项目旨在了解加工过程中的主要压力源，温度和剪切力，并将其与酶的性能相关联。一旦建立了这种关系，结果用于将聚合物膜制造按比例放大到双螺杆挤出机，类似于商业膜制造中使用的那些。该奖项反映了NSF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。

This grant supports research that contributes to the development of advanced manufacturing methods to enable the capture of carbon dioxide from industrial waste gases. Greenhouse gases are the principal factor driving climate change and one of the most detrimental human-derived waste products is carbon dioxide. Current technologies to sequester carbon dioxide are energy intensive and inefficient. This research develops a process to manufacture carbon-capture membranes that are inexpensive, energy efficient, and scalable to meet this growing societal need. The research relies on polymer melt-processing, a plastic manufacturing technique that enables the large-scale production of most common plastic goods. The innovation is using melt-processing to integrate biochemical catalysts or enzymes into plastic membranes to sequester carbon dioxide. Enzymatic carbon dioxide capture occurs at room temperature to produce solid carbon salts which can be easily stored, thus greatly reducing the energy demand. The outcome of this research greatly benefits society, since climate change is a grand challenge in engineering, and, thus, is instrumental in securing the prosperity and security of the country. This research is multi-disciplinary and includes polymer science, chemical engineering, materials science, and biochemistry. Students conducting this research are trained at the forefront of science, which has a long-term positive impact on the nation?s technological output. The use of carbonic anhydrase as a carbon dioxide capture catalyst is promising given the enzymes rapid turnover number, minimal energy input for sequestration and ability to sequester carbon into solid salts. The limiting factor for applying carbonic anhydrase broadly is a manufacturing challenge that requires scalability and reproducibility. Current enzyme immobilization processes operate in batch mode and rely on adsorption or non-specific chemical reactions to a solid support, limiting scalability and reproducibility. This research develops continuous manufacturing methods to incorporate carbonic anhydrase into permeable polymer membranes that can be fabricated at large scale. The primary hurdle in accomplishing this goal is to develop a fundamental understanding of processing conditions under which carbonic anhydrase maintains stability and activity during melt-extrusion. This project seeks to understand the main stressors, temperature and shear, during processing and correlate these to enzyme performance. Once this relationship has been established, the results are used to scale-up polymer membrane manufacture to twin-screw extruders, similar to those used in commercial film manufacturing. These membranes are evaluated for carbon dioxide flux, sequestration, and durability in environments that mimic complex mixtures of industrial waste 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.