Sustainable Economy

Projects aimed at life-cycle analysis and products/processes using renewable resources.

Go to Research Project Index for all Research Project Categories.

Life Cycle Models of Biobased Product Systems

Over the next century, a much larger fraction of chemicals, materials and fuels will be produced from plant raw materials. These biobased industrial products offer the potential for a much more sustainable economy based on environmentally-superior products. In order to realize the full economic and environmental benefits of biobased products, we must carefully analyze and improve their life cycle performance. We are currently involved in life cycle studies involving "refining" of corn, soybeans and forage crops (alfalfa and switchgrass) to fuel ethanol and other products. Our goal is to identify portions of the overall agricultural production, biorefining and product use systems that have the greatest impact on environmental and economic performance so that these areas can be targeted for additional research and improvement.

Investigators (PI is linked): Bruce E. Dale
Categories: Biotechnology, Biobased Industrial Products, Sustainable Economy, Environmental Research, Energy Production

Utilization of Renewable Resources

Eventually more fuels, chemicals and materials will be produced from renewable plant materials. Our current work is focused on pretreatments to increase the conversion of lignocellulose to fermentable sugars. We collaborate with others on the development of microorganisms and engineering strategies to ferment complex mixtures of these sugars. A new project is to genetically engineer plants to express the cellulase (cellulose-hydrolyzing) enzymes in plant tissue and then to develop processing strategies so that these enzymes can retain their activity until they are released in the biorefinery. We are also working to develop optimal mixtures of hydrolytic enzymes to convert the complex carbohydrates in biomass to fermentable sugars.

Investigators (PI is linked): Bruce E. Dale
Categories: Energy Production, Biotechnology, Biobased Industrial Products, Sustainable Economy

Property Measurement and Prediction for Bio-derived Chemicals

Bio-derived chemicals and fuels typically have a significant oxygen content. Predictive models developed for petrochemicals often have difficulty accurately predicting properties. We are actively support collaborative efforts by providing estimations and measurements, including the use of molecular simulations.

Investigators (PI is linked): Carl T. Lira
Categories: Energy Production, Biobased Industrial Products, Sustainable Economy

Hydrogenolysis of Carbohydrate Feedstocks

Carbohydrate feedstocks such as glucose or xylose can be hydrogenated to sugar alcohols and further cracked to value-added polyols such as ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, and glycerol. Catalysts, solvents, and reaction conditions play a key role in product distribution. Modeling of three phase reactors for polyol hydrogenolysis is a key focus of the project.

Investigators (PI is linked): Dennis J Miller
Categories: Biobased Industrial Products, Sustainable Economy

Aqueous Phase Hydrogenation of Organic Acids

Organic acids constitute an important class of feed materials for renewable resource-based chemicals production. Hydrogenation over supported metal catalysts in aqueous solutions produces the corresponding alcohols that have important industrial uses. Substrates investigated include lactic, succinic, propanoi, and various amino acids; the corresponding alcohols can retain the stereochemistry found in the parent acid.

Investigators (PI is linked): Dennis J Miller
Categories: Biobased Industrial Products, Sustainable Economy

Reactive Separations

Formation of chemical products from renewable resource-based feedstocks often results in a complex product mixture or dilute product streams. Novel separation and recovery schemes involving reactive separations reduce costs and enhance product purities. Systems under investigation include organic acid esters, polyols recovery, and acetal formation.

Investigators (PI is linked): Dennis J Miller , Carl T. Lira
Categories: Separation Science, Biobased Industrial Products, Sustainable Economy

Fractionation of Lignocellulosic Biomass Utilizing Alkaline Pretreatments

Hemicellulose and lignin biopolymers from alkaline pretreatment liquors have unique properties that allow for separations for the purposes of hydrolyzate detoxification, alkali recovery, or recovery of solubilized biopolymers. This goal of this project is to develop an effective integrated processing strategy involving alkaline lignocellulose fractionation. For this, a number of factors need to be considered in tandem which include understanding how changes in the alkaline pretreatment affect the properties of the biopolymers solubilized, how these properties affect the potential for recovery and separation, how the properties of the recovered component affects its capacity for use as a feedstock in other processes, and how the overall process is positioned in terms of yields, efficiency, and economics.

Investigators (PI is linked): David Hodge
http://www.chems.msu.edu/groups/hodge/  Categories: Separation Science, Energy Production, Biobased Industrial Products, Sustainable Economy

Catalytic transformation of biorenewables to petrochemicals

An important global challenge is the need to eventually replace finite fossil fuels with viable renewable resources. Currently, there are many significant initiatives on converting biomass to alternative fuels, but much less activity on using renewables for petrochemicals production. There is much knowledge on the transformation of crude oil to fuels and chemical feedstocks. However, due to significant differences between crude oil and biomass, these well-tested transformation pathways are not suitable for biomass conversion. In this project, we are developing generic methods for synthesizing catalytic nanoparticles (NPs) and surface modification to attach molecular catalysts (MCs), developing protocols for physical and/or chemical immobilization of catalytic NPs and NP-MC complexes in microfluidic channels, and assessing and optimizing catalytic NPs in both classical and microfluidic reactors. We will use the conversion of lactic acid to glycerol as the model reaction. Fatty acids from plant oils represent another important class of abundant biorenewables. To convert these to petrochemicals, we will anchor molecular catalysts to catalytic bimetallic nanoparticles to obtain NP-MC hybrid (NMH), and assess NMH catalyst effectiveness in microreactors using the hydrogenation of selected fatty acids to petrochemicals as model reactions. This is a collaborative project with Professor Obare (Department of Chemistry at UNCC; adjunct in CHEMS).

Investigators (PI is linked): Robert Y. Ofoli
Categories: Nanomaterials, Colloid and Interface Science, Biotechnology, Biobased Industrial Products, Sustainable Economy

Transport and Stability in Biocatalytic Fuel Cells

Enzyme electrocatalysts are an attractive alternative to conventional noble metals because of their high selectivity, manufacturability by fermentation techniques, and activity in environments where platinum-group metals are fouled. Until recently, however, they were not considered to be practical catalysts for energy applications because the current density, potential, and stability of the resulting cells were insufficient. We study chemical engineering aspects of the materials and structures used to implement these enzymes in electrodes, such as carbon supports, electronic mediators, and reactant transport mechanisms, in order to improve and maximize the overall performance and stability of bioelectocatalytic systems.

Investigators (PI is linked): Scott Calabrese Barton
Categories: Sustainable Economy, Biomaterials, Nanomaterials

Mixed-feed Direct Methanol Fuel Cells

The need for high energy density, lightweight power sources for demanding portable electronic applications gives incentive to the search for novel fuel cell concepts and approaches that could reduce size, weight, and system complexity. Such power sources could find applications in variety of portable medical devices, computer hardware, and military equipment. We are developing a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) system design approach where the fuel (methanol) and air are mixed and fed simultaneously to both the anodes and the cathodes of the fuel cell stack. This approach leads to substantial size and weight reductions by eliminating the need for bipolar flow-field/separator plates and cell seals and by simplifying fluid manifolds. The key issues are the need for selective electrocatalyis at both the anode and cathode and efficient mixing and separation systems upstream and downstream of the fuel cell stack, respectively.

Investigators (PI is linked): Scott Calabrese Barton
Categories: Sustainable Economy, Energy Production, Rheology and Multiphase Flow, Nanomaterials

Alkaline and Oxidative Pretreatments of Lignocellulose

The focus of this work is to investigate novel approaches for delignification and depolymerization of lignocellulose carbohydrates by alkaline oxygen pretreatments which, in contrast to acid pretreatments, specifically target delignification. The use of alkaline-oxidative conditions as a pretreatment presents unique opportunities for co-products and separations as well as challenges from a process integration viewpoint and is an additional feature of this research project.

Investigators (PI is linked): David Hodge
http://www.chems.msu.edu/groups/hodge/  Categories: Biomaterials, Energy Production, Biobased Industrial Products, Sustainable Economy