(428a) Biorenewable Chemicals: Creating a Generalized Production Paradigm

A truly sustainable chemical industry will require the utilization of renewable carbon feedstocks. The use of biobased feedstocks is beginning to receive an unprecedented amount of attention due to its particular promise. However, the prevailing approach for developing biorenewable chemicals to replace petrochemicals relies primarily on targeting one or two chemicals at a time. This serially approach is inherently expensive and time consuming. Since biorenewable chemicals must compete against a highly efficient petrochemical production system based primarily on conversions of ethylene, propylene and benzene, there is a need to create a generalized framework in which a range of biorenewable chemicals can be produced from a common technological platform. One such generalized production framework, being developed by the NSF Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals (CBiRC), depends on the creation of a common metabolic pathway leading to intermediate chemicals that are subsequently converted to chemical products using chemical catalysts. Discussed will be the reaction engineering approach being used by CBiRC as well as initial results.