PFI-TT: Pilot-scale demonstration of an advanced biotechnology to treat toxic wastewater produced in the biofuel industry

PFI-TT：先进生物技术的中试规模示范，用于处理生物燃料行业产生的有毒废水

• 批准号: 2234562
• 负责人: Zhiwu Wang
• 金额: $ 25万
• 依托单位: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-03-15 至 2025-02-28
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2234562&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: PFI; TT; Pilot; scale; demonstration

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is to address the challenge - of cleaning toxic wastewater produced during biofuel production. In recent years, the production of transportation fuels from wet biomass has received increasing attention due to its promising potential to shift society’s dependence away from petroleum to renewable resources for the development of a sustainable industrial society, which is also an effective way to manage the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The technology demonstrates with the potential to enable biofuel commercialization and position U.S. renewable energy at the global forefront. This technology will advance scientific discovery of a transformative platform to enable sustainable bioenergy production, train the next generation of entrepreneurs, scientists, and engineers in bioenergy engineering, and environmental engineering/science. Such an industry-university collaborative project will deliver research outcomes useful for industrial partners to adopt in practice, offer complementary student (graduate, undergraduate, and K-12 students) trainings in entrepreneurship, and student internships. The proposed project seeks to demonstrate an innovative biotechnology pilot treatment specifically tailored for the valorization of wastewater generated during the biofuel production. A bottleneck that limits the economic and technical scalability of biorefineries is the production of toxic wastewater that cannot be reclaimed by conventional wastewater treatment systems. The team’s prior bench-scale study has shown that a special type of marine microorganism can be used an innovative bioprocess to reduce or remove the toxins in this wastewater. However, the scalability of the technology remains to be evaluated. To this end, the objectives of this project are to: 1) deliver a pilot-scale bioprocess specifically tailored for the marine microorganism; 2) optimize the productivity of this bioprocess; and 3) assess the economic viability of the technology. It is expected that the outcome from this project will overcome difficulties impeding the commercialization of the biofuel production.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该创新合作伙伴关系 - 技术转化 (PFI-TT) 项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是解决清洁生物燃料生产过程中产生的有毒废水的挑战。 近年来，利用湿生物质生产运输燃料的情况不断增加。由于其有望将社会对石油的依赖转向可再生资源，以实现可持续工业社会的发展，这也是减少温室气体排放的有效方法，因此该技术具有实现生物燃料商业化的潜力。该技术将推动美国可再生能源领域的科学发现，以实现可持续的生物能源生产，并培训生物能源工程和环境工程/科学行业的下一代企业家、科学家和工程师。 -大学合作项目将提供可供工业合作伙伴在实践中采用的有用研究成果，为学生（研究生、本科生和 K-12 学生）提供创业培训和学生实习。拟议项目旨在展示创新的生物技术试点治疗。专门为生物燃料生产过程中产生的废水的价值限制了生物炼制厂经济和技术可扩展性的一个瓶颈是产生传统废水处理系统无法回收的有毒废水。海洋微生物可以采用创新的生物工艺来减少或去除废水中的毒素，但该技术的可扩展性仍有待评估，该项目的目标是： 1) 提供专门针对海洋微生物的中试规模生物工艺；2) 优化该生物工艺的生产力；3) 评估该技术的经济可行性，预计该项目的成果将克服阻碍商业化的困难。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。