Hydrocarbons From Low Value Lipids and Algae

在过去的几十年里，工业生物精炼的兴起见证了包括乙醇和生物柴油在内的第一代生物燃料的大规模部署。这种急于部署与我们传统能源部门不直接兼容的技术的做法已经产生了几个负面后果，包括食品与燃料的争论、间接土地利用问题以及对经济和可持续发展的普遍担忧。各国政府随后在第二代纤维素乙醇的开发上投入了大量资金，但燃料和化学工业一直坚定不移地看到生物燃料的部署更符合其现有的基础设施和业务，这符合它们的利益。NSERC Discovery Grant计划之前对布雷斯勒博士的实验室进行了投资，发现了一项现已获得专利的脂转烃技术，该技术能够将所有传统的脂肪和油脂来源，包括所有植物油、废动物脂肪和废餐厅油脂，直接转化为真正的碳氢燃料、溶剂和化学品，与该行业传统使用的燃料、溶剂和化学品相同，而不需要使用催化剂或氢。这些发现现在正通过其他资金和产业投资转化为产业，并启动了一家新的大学初创企业。然而，要让这一新技术真正发挥全部潜力，就会出现一些问题，比如寻找更令人满意的原料，包括藻油、来自林业的高油，甚至是来自城市垃圾的脂肪和油。申请的NSERC发现拨款将重点调查将这些新的和更麻烦的原料预处理成与新开发的技术兼容的形式。这项研究的第二个目标将是为这些新原料的加工过程中产生的甘油和营养丰富的副产品流找到更多的应用。目标将是真正了解这些新材料的加工过程中涉及的特征和机制，以便开发一种真正具有颠覆性的先进生物能源技术。

Over the last couple decades, the rise of industrial biorefining has seen large-scale deployment of first generation biofuels including ethanol and biodiesel. This rush to deploy technologies not directly compatible with our traditional energy sector has had several negative consequences including food vs. fuel debates, indirect land use issues, and general concerns on economic and sustainability grounds. Governments have subsequently heavily invested in development of 2nd generation cellulosic ethanol however the fuel and chemical industries have been unwavering in their interests in seeing the deployment of biofuels more compatible to their existing infrastructure and operations. Previous investments from the NSERC Discovery Grant program into the laboratory of Dr. Bressler have seen the discovery of a now patented Lipid to Hydrocarbon technology capable of converting all conventional sources of fats and oils, including all plant oils, waste animal fats and spent restaurant grease, directly to true hydrocarbon fuels, solvents and chemicals, identical to those traditionally used by the industry, without the use of catalysts or hydrogen. These finding are now being translated to industry through other funding and industrial investment and have seen the launch of a new university start-up. However, for this new class of technology to really reach full potential, questions have arisen around finding even more desirable feedstocks including algal oils, tall oils from forestry and even fats and oils from municipal waste streams. The requested NSERC Discovery grant will focus on investigations into pre-processing these new and more troublesome feedstocks into forms compatible with the newly developed technology. A second goal of the research will be to find additional applications for glycerol and nutrient rich byproduct streams coming from the processing of these new feedstocks. The goal will be to get a true understanding of the characteristics and mechanisms involved in the processing of these new materials to allow the development of a truly disruptive advanced bio-based energy technology.