SBIR Phase II: Scalable Production of Platform Chemicals from Inedible Biomass and Carbon Dioxide

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是使从丰富和可持续的原料中获得具有成本竞争力的有用化学品和材料的大批量生产成为可能。该项目正在开发一种工艺，以二氧化碳和一种由不可食用生物质制成的商品原料为原料，生产一种名为FDCA（呋喃-2,5-二羧酸）的化学品。FDCA是一种天然存在的物质，用于制造聚合物（即塑料），与目前从化石燃料原料中生产的类似聚合物相比，这些聚合物具有优越的性能。生产这些聚合物的障碍是生产FDCA非常复杂，而且成本高得令人望而却步。制造FDCA的竞争技术需要食用糖作为原料，并且需要大量的工艺步骤，导致制造成本高。该项目建议使用一个大大简化的过程来生产这种化学品，从而使生产具有成本竞争力。通过将该技术推向商业应用，该项目将对美国经济竞争力和化学工业创新产生深远影响。有了安全的FDCA供应，美国化学和材料公司可以发展聚合物的制造能力，最终市场机会达到1000亿美元。此外，用这些更环保的聚合物取代能源和排放密集型的化石燃料衍生聚合物将减少多个经济部门的排放。最后，这些聚合物具有有利的终端使用选择，将减少塑料废物及其在环境中的积累。该SBIR第二期项目建议将FDCA生产过程关键步骤的技术提高到能够在中试规模示范中实施的水平。所研究的反应是糠醛在水碱性条件下有氧氧化生成呋喃-2-羧酸酯（糠酸酯）。在工业相关条件下（高浓度和高速率）氧化糠醛从根本上具有挑战性，因为糠醛容易快速降解。在早期的第一阶段项目中，对该过程的研究提供了对反应机理的关键见解，并确定了两种连续运行的潜在反应堆设计。第二阶段项目将比较这两种反应器设计的性能，扩大首选设计，验证催化剂寿命，并演示将反应产物集成到FDCA工艺的下游步骤中。该项目的成功完成将完成氧化装置在中试示范中运行的反应器设计。除了将该技术推向商业化之外，该项目还将通过提供对水性好氧反应的催化剂选择、工艺条件和反应器设计的见解，创造新的知识，使可再生原料更广泛地用于化工生产。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 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to enable cost-competitive, high-volume production of useful chemicals and materials from abundant and sustainable feedstocks. This project is developing a process to manufacture a chemical known as FDCA (furan-2,5-dicarboxylic acid) from carbon dioxide and a commodity feedstock made from inedible biomass. FDCA is a naturally occurring substance and is used to make polymers (i.e., plastics) that have superior performance compared to analogous polymers produced today from fossil fuel feedstocks. The obstacle to producing these polymers is that it has been complicated and prohibitively expensive to produce FDCA. The competing technologies for making FDCA require edible sugar as the feedstock and a very large number of process steps, resulting in high manufacturing costs. This project proposes to produce this chemical using a dramatically simplified process, which enables cost-competitive production. By advancing the technology toward commercial application, this project will have a far-reaching impact on US economic competitiveness and innovation in the chemical industry. With a secure FDCA supply, US chemical and materials companies can develop manufacturing capacity for polymers with an ultimate market opportunity of $100 billion. In addition, replacing energy- and emissions-intensive fossil fuel-derived polymers with these more environmentally friendly polymers will reduce emissions of multiple economic sectors. Finally, these polymers have favorable end-of-use options that will reduce plastic waste and its accumulation in the environment.This SBIR Phase II project proposes to advance the technology for a key step of the FDCA production process to a level that enables its implementation in a pilot-scale demonstration. The reaction under investigation is the aerobic oxidation of furfural to furan-2-carboxylate (furoate) under aqueous alkaline conditions. Oxidizing furfural under industrially relevant conditions (high concentration and high rates) is fundamentally challenging because furfural is prone to rapid degradation processes. Studies of the process in the earlier Phase I project provided key insights into the reaction mechanism and identified two potential reactor designs for continuous operation. The Phase II project will compare performance in these two reactor designs, scale up the preferred design, validate catalyst lifetime, and demonstrate integration of the reaction product into the downstream steps of this FDCA process. Successful completion of the project will finalize the reactor design for the oxidation unit operation in a pilot demonstration. In addition to advancing this technology toward commercialization, the project will create new knowledge to enable broader utilization of renewable feedstocks for chemical production by providing insights into catalyst selection, process conditions, and reactor designs for aqueous aerobic oxidation reactions.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.