PI Name: George Huber Institution: University of Massachusetts Amherst Proposal Number: 0937895
EFRI-HyBi Green Aromatics by Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis of Lignocellulosic Biomass
This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)
Intellectual Merit Cellulosic biomass has tremendous potential as a feedstock to produce liquid fuels due to its low cost, sustainable production and abundance. The PIs have recently developed a new process, called catalytic fast pyrolysis (CFP), to convert solid biomass directly into gasoline range aromatics. The advantages of CFP include short residence times (2-10 s), reaction that occurs in one single step, inexpensive catalysts, and fuel products that already fit into existing infrastructure. The objective of this project is to investigate the underlying physical and chemical mechanisms that control the CFP of biomass to fuels. CFP involves the direct conversion of solid biomass into gasoline-range aromatic compounds in a fluidized bed reactor. This complex process involves thermal decomposition of the biomass particles, transport of the resulting gaseous species and reactions in the gas phase surrounding the particles, and transport and reactions of the pyrolysis products inside the zeolite catalyst particles to yield gasoline-range aromatic compounds. The complexity of the process requires an interdisciplinary approach that will enable a better understanding of the underlying physical and chemical phenomena and lead to the development of accurate multi-scale reaction-transport models that can be used to guide reactor design, scale up, and optimization. The PIs have assembled a multi-disciplinary research team that includes experts on catalysis, reaction engineering, theoretical chemistry, fluid mechanics, gas-particle flows, heat transfer, cogeneration, and transport phenomena, aiming to understand the fundamental mechanisms underlying the CFP of biomass to fuels. They will also develop a cogeneration strategy that integrates a CFP process with a power cycle for maximum utilization of the energy content of the biomass feedstock. They propose a combination of kinetic and hydrodynamic experiments that will enable validation of multi-scale reaction-transport models. These models will accurately represent microscopic interactions occurring in the pores of catalyst particles and couple them to reactor-level descriptions of momentum, energy, and mass transport. The ultimate objective is to develop more efficient catalysts and design new reactors for CFP of solid biomass to fuels and cogeneration of electricity. The researchers in the team have a broad range of complementary research expertise to effectively address the challenges posed by the complexity of the proposed project.
Broader Impacts The proposed program integrates research on biofuels with an educational and outreach component that are designed to demonstrate the importance of engineering in the area of biofuels and renewable energy. While it is generally accepted that biology and biotechnology are vitally important for biofuels production, it is less well known that catalysis and reaction engineering are equally important. The PIs? research on biofuels has received significant media attention and provides an opportunity to educate the public on the topic and excite interest in high school students to pursue careers in science and engineering. They plan to host in their laboratories underprivileged students from Springfield, MA, area high schools and collaborate with science teachers to develop teaching modules on sustainable energy. They also plan to recruit, mentor and support minority graduate students by collaborating with the Northeast Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (NEAGEP) at UMass, which supports efforts to recruit and mentor doctoral students from population groups that are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
