Workshop: Developing New Paradigms for Biofuel Separations to Enable an Alternative Fuels Future

研讨会：开发生物燃料分离新范式以实现替代燃料的未来

• 批准号: 1104933
• 负责人: Daniel Shantz
• 金额: $ 4.3万
• 依托单位: Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-03-01 至 2013-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1104933&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Workshop; Developing; New; Paradigms; Biofuel

1104933ShantzThere are many significant drivers for the United States to shift to alternative fuels. These range from reducing our dependency on foreign imports of oils, to the deleterious effects of climate change that are driven by fossil fuels utilization, to creating a new industrial sector (green energy) that will provide high quality jobs for the future work force. There are many routes being explored and touted as alternatives to fossil fuel, including wind, solar, hydrogen, and nuclear energy. One of the more promising possibilities is the development of biofuels from non-edible crops. It would appear that one of the key advantages of biofuels is that conversion of biomass is possible using known technologies such as pyrolysis, hydrolysis, fermentation etc. However, one of the key challenges in this area is that these processes on whole are nonselective. Thus, while the reactor technology for processing raw biomass into a base product feedstock is available, there will be considerable needs for the development of methods for upgrading the base product feedstock. The ability to selectively remove desirable components (e.g. sugars, furfurals) from streams produced by pyrolysis / hydrolysis would represent a simple route to either blending renewable feedstocks into existing fuel production schemes or lead to whole new routes for fuel production. The former represents a logical intermediate target that would be beneficial to the fuels industry meeting government-mandated targets for integration of renewable compounds into the fuel pool. The latter represents the ultimate goal of moving the country away from fossil fuels. Based on these points, it is believed that new separation schemes will be needed for biofuel utilization to reach its full potential. This workshop will have three major themes: 1. A discussion of the state of the art in feedstock processing, with an emphasis on the nature of the resulting bio-mixtures, particularly focused on properties of relevance for potential separations. 2. A discussion of the current state of liquid separations applied to biofuels processing. 3. A summary session outlining the key and unique challenges facing this area that will lay out a roadmap for future work and goals in the field.

1104933Shantz 美国转向替代燃料有许多重要的驱动因素。这些范围包括减少我们对外国石油进口的依赖，到化石燃料的利用所驱动的气候变化的有害影响，到创建一个新的工业部门（绿色能源），为未来的劳动力提供高质量的就业机会。有许多路线正在探索并被宣传为化石燃料的替代品，包括风能、太阳能、氢能和核能。更有前景的可能性之一是利用非食用作物开发生物燃料。生物燃料的主要优点之一似乎是可以使用已知技术（例如热解、水解、发酵等）来转化生物质。然而，该领域的主要挑战之一是这些过程总体上是非选择性的。因此，虽然可以使用将原始生物质加工成基础产品原料的反应器技术，但仍非常需要开发用于升级基础产品原料的方法。从热解/水解产生的流中选择性去除所需成分（例如糖、糠醛）的能力将代表一种将可再生原料混合到现有燃料生产方案中或导致全新的燃料生产路线的简单途径。前者代表了一个合理的中间目标，有利于燃料行业实现政府规定的将可再生化合物纳入燃料池的目标。后者代表了该国摆脱化石燃料的最终目标。基于这些观点，我们相信生物燃料的利用需要新的分离方案才能充分发挥其潜力。本次研讨会将有三个主要主题： 1. 讨论原料加工的最新技术，重点是所得生物混合物的性质，特别是与潜在分离相关的特性。 2. 讨论应用于生物燃料加工的液体分离的现状。 3. 总结会议概述了该领域面临的关键和独特挑战，并为该领域未来的工作和目标制定了路线图。