Optimisation of ionic liquid-based biomass processing

该项目将涉及优化低成本离子液体在生物质加工中的应用。目标应用是生产生物燃料和增值产品，如用于溶解纸浆的纤维（纺织品和消费品）和纳米纤维素。我们将使用ionoSolv（BioFlex）工艺将生物质破碎成纤维素和木质素产品流，并评估生物燃料和生物材料产品选项。该项目的特殊挑战将是优化提取过程中的工艺参数，以提高纤维素特性（低木质素含量，长纤维长度），同时保持关键的工艺集成特性（下游用水量和能耗）。该ionoSolv工艺正在由帝国理工学院的一家分拆公司Lixea LTD进行商业开发，并且在整个项目中将继续分享工艺开发的数据。

The project will involve optimisation of the application of low-cost ionic liquids to the processing of biomass. Target application is the production of biofuels and value-added products, such as fibres for dissolving pulps (textile and consumer products) and nanocellulose. We will use the ionoSolv (BioFlex) process to fractionate biomass into cellulose and lignin product streams and evaluate biofuel and biomaterial product options. The particular challenge in this project will be to optimize the process parameters during extraction to increase cellulose characteristics (low lignin content, long fibre length) while maintaining key process integration characteristics (downstream water usage and energy consumption). The ionoSolv process is under commercial development by Lixea LTD, an Imperial College spin-out company, and data sharing on process development will continue throughout the project.