(564f) Adsorption of Second Generation Biofuels Using Polymer Resins with in Situ Product Recovery (ISPR) Applications

The application of hydrophobic polymeric resins as solid-phase adsorbent materials for the recovery and purification of prospective second generation biofuel compounds, including ethanol, iso-propanol, n-propanol, iso-butanol, n-butanol, 2-methyl-1-butanol, 3-methyl-1-butanol, and n-pentanol, has been investigated. A simple, yet robust correlation has been proposed to model the relative equilibrium partitioning behavior of a series of branched and n-alcohols as a function of their relative hydrophobicity, and has been applied to ultimately predict their adsorption potential. Longer chain alcohols were subject to greater adsorption due to their increasingly hydrophobic nature. Those resins with a non-polar monomeric structure and high specific surface area provided the highest overall adsorption of each of the studied compounds. The present study provides the first demonstration of the ability of hydrophobic polymer resins to serve as effective in situ product recovery (ISPR) devices for the production of second generation biofuels.