RAPID Funded Projects

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Sugars-To-Bioproducts Scalable Platform Technology

While tremendous progress has been achieved on creating routes for the production of chemicals and fuels from lignocellulosic biomass, many of these processes are not economic due to the number of process steps required and the requirement for significant inter-stage separations. This project is developing a modularized chemical process intensification technology for the production of bio-para-xylene (biopX) from glucose.

Investigators

Dion Vlachos
Allan and Myra Ferguson Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Partner Organizations

University of Delaware

Focus Areas

Date approved

November 01, 2017
Current TRL
4

Robust Membranes For Black Liquor Concentration

Black liquor (BL), also known as “spent pulping liquor”, is a high-volume byproduct of lignocellulosic biomass pretreatment (i.e., wood pulping by the kraft process). BL is a corrosive, toxic, and complex mixture. About 500 million tons/yr of BL are produced in more than 200 kraft process units worldwide (including 99 in the US, with about 0.2 quads/yr energy spent for BL concentration by multi-effect evaporation). Currently, BL concentration is performed by multi-effect evaporators and is one of the most energy-intensive industrial separation processes.

Investigators

Sankar Nair
Associate Professor

Partner Organizations

Georgia Institute of Technology APPTI

Focus Areas

Date approved

November 01, 2017
Current TRL
6

Autothermal pyrolysis of lignocellulose wastes to sugars and other biobased products

Deconstruction of lignocellulosic biomass into fermentable sugars is among the major challenges in producing cellulosic biofuels and biobased products. Current pretreatment methods to liberate solid cellulose are expensive, accounting for as much as 30% of the cost of producing cellulosic biofuels. Most pretreatments do not completely fractionate cellulose and lignin, the latter of which interferes with enzymatic hydrolysis.

Investigators

Robert Brown
Professor

Partner Organizations

Iowa State University

Focus Areas

Date approved

April 01, 2017
Current TRL
6

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