Global energy consumption will increase dramatically in the next several decades, thus stimulating demand for fuels and chemicals produced from renewable sources such as biomass. While the processes for converting biomass to chemicals such as ethanol are well-known, the further processing of those fermentation products to the larger molecules that make up fuels and chemicals is presently inefficient and not well understood. This project will investigate new combinations of catalytic materials specifically designed to promote the coupling of fermentation products into diesel fuel, lubricants and chemical feedstocks. By understanding the detailed catalytic chemistry and its relationship to the structure and composition of the catalytic materials, the research will lay the groundwork for a new class of catalyst materials that can convert fermentation products into higher-value products both more efficiently and with significant energy savings compared to existing processes. The work will also provide opportunities for the training of both graduate students and undergraduates in science, technology, and engineering, with special emphasis on providing opportunities to female students.
Most biomass upgrading processes rely on acidic catalysts. Basic catalysts have generally been avoided because of poisoning by water and carbon dioxide associated with fermentation processes. These researchers have recognized an opportunity to combine both acidic and basic catalytic functions into a single catalyst in a way that promotes aldol type condensation (i.e. chain growth) reactions without the usual poisoning effects. They will do this by investigating more than 25 technologically relevant catalysts containing a range of acid sites, base sites, and acid-base site pairs. Using a combination of experimental tools, they will characterize the number and strength of acid, base, and acid-base pair sites and then relate alcohol and aldehyde adsorption on those sites to detailed aldol condensation kinetics and identification of critical transition states. The broader scientific impact of this work will be to produce guiding principles for the design of more active and stable catalysts for the production of carbon-neutral biofuels and chemicals. In addition, the principal investigator is building an undergraduate research program that focuses on developing graduate-student female mentors to work with undergraduate mentees in the STEM areas.
