replaces petroleum products from the source. This is the research of Luo Yuqing (qíng), a young man from Hubei. In related papers, the co-first author who co-authored the article with him has established related companies for incubation.
Taken as a whole, this work demonstrates the possibility of generating high-value products from different biorefined lignins. In the study, he and his colleagues proposed a new process for producing polymer precursors from renewable resources and demonstrated the good economics of this method on high-value resin materials.
Picture | Luo Yuqing (Source: Luo Yuqing)
Luo Yuqing is from Wuhan, Hubei, and is currently studying for a PhD in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware in the United States. Recently, his co-authored paper was published under the title "Ambient-pressure lignin valorization to high-performance polymers by intensified reductive catalytic deconstruction" On Science Advances[1].
Figure | Related papers (Source: Science Advances)
Its supervisor, Professor Marianthi Ierapetritou, serves as a co-author, and Thomas H. Epp, Professor of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware Thomas H. Epps III serves as the corresponding author of .
Improved traditional lignin reduction catalytic fractionation technology
At present, energy and chemicals still mainly rely on petroleum raw materials for production, which will inevitably cause a large amount of carbon emissions. In recent years, people have paid more and more attention to environmental issues, and many countries have set carbon peak and carbon neutral emission reduction targets. The use of biomass instead of petroleum raw materials is considered a very potential solution. A large number of companies and scientific research institutions have invested heavily in related experiments, and have also proposed multiple effective synthesis routes in the laboratory.
However, most current business operations and decisions are still constrained by economic benefits. For a technology to be accepted by the public and adopted by enterprises, it not only needs to have the effect of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, but also needs to ensure that the production cost can compete with current traditional petrochemical products. For example, after years of development and several generations of iterations, the process of biomass fermentation to produce ethanol fuel has been able to achieve large-scale production, but its application is still limited by high production costs.
Lignin is widely distributed in various biomass raw materials, especially non-food biomass materials such as wood, bark and alga. This research is an improvement on the traditional lignin reduction catalytic fractionation technology, and the main innovation comes from the experimental part of the collaborators.
Currently, many studies have been able to effectively convert most other components in biomass into sugars and other valuable intermediates. However, how to effectively utilize lignin remains a challenge.
For example, a large amount of waste lignin is produced during the papermaking process. Due to lack of effective utilization, most of it is burned to provide the heat required for the overall process. Inevitably, this process will produce large amounts of carbon dioxide, thereby exacerbating the effects of climate warming.
In this work, the research team selected higher boiling point glycerol as the solvent and participated in the catalytic fractionation reaction of lignin reduction. The traditional methods mostly use methanol as solvent, and use excessive hydrogen . Due to the long reaction time, traditional high-pressure batch processes will be more difficult to scale up to industrial production scale and more difficult to operate.
(Source: Science Advances)
The method of using glycerin to react under normal pressure and performing reactive distillation at the same time not only facilitates continuous production, but also effectively improves energy utilization.
Luo Yuqing said: "Our experimental collaborators named this new lignin conversion technology reactive distillation-reductive catalytic depolymerization. In addition, we continue to explore the functionalization of lignin-derived phenols. , and used in the manufacture of 3D printing resins and pressure-sensitive adhesives. "In addition to the resin materials used in 3D printing or pressure-sensitive adhesives mentioned in the paper, lignin-derived phenols can also be used to make perfumes or other fragrance additives.
has replaced petroleum products from the source. The co-authors have established related companies and obtained state government financial support.
In this paper, Luo Yuqing mainly started from the new experimental conditions and results to design and simulate the chemical process and make an economical analysis. technical analysis. The main purpose is to compare the improved process with traditional methods in terms of economy, with a view to revealing the economic factors that restrict the development of current technology in the early stages of laboratory research, such as too expensive raw materials and too low concentration of reaction solutions. This will further contribute to the improvement of this technology.
(Source: Science Advances)
According to reports, this topic is a research project of the National Science Foundation Growing Convergence Research Fund at the University of Delaware. The co-author of this study, Professor Thomas H. Epps III, has been exploring this field for many years, and his research group has done a lot of groundbreaking work before. After determining the feasibility of the experimental part and conducting detailed experiments on the synthetic route, they contacted Luo Yuqing's research group, hoping to compare their lignin conversion technology with traditional methods through cooperation in order to make further improvements.
Robert M. O’Dea, a doctoral student and co-first author of this article, is continuing to develop and commercialize this technology. Currently, he and his mentor Thomas H. Epps III founded a company called Lignolix in 2019 based on this series of technologies, and has currently received financial support from Delaware .
According to reports, this paper mainly focuses on economic and technical analysis, that is, examining the cost of the technology. They then conducted a life cycle assessment of the technology to analyze the environmental impact of using biomass instead of crude oil to generate chemicals.
(Source: Science Advances)
In recent years, as global climate issues continue to receive attention and countries have established low-carbon emission reduction goals, research in this area has become increasingly known to the public. The starting point of using biomass raw materials to produce compounds is to replace petroleum products from the source, thereby reducing carbon emissions. However, if other petrochemicals or excess energy are used in actual production, more greenhouse gases may be emitted.
At the same time, considering the complexity and diversity of sources of biomass raw materials, Luo Yuqing and colleagues designed a more integrated process to convert leftover materials in wood processing, such as bark, branches, leaves, etc., so as to more effectively Other components of biomass such as cellulose are used to produce chemicals. He said that this part of the work has been compiled into a paper, and has now undergone the first round of revisions and is undergoing the second round of peer review.
(Source: Science Advances)
After completing his undergraduate courses during the summer vacation of his junior year, he went abroad to join the Penn University internship
According to reports, Luo Yuqing graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. He initially chose the Polymer Department mainly because of his feelings. very funny.For him, polymer materials are widely used in life, and the basic theories of polymer science can explain and solve many common problems. Because I enjoyed it, my grades have been ranked first in the four years of college, and I was awarded the title of Shanghai Outstanding Graduate when I graduated.
Among them, he had completed all the courses in his junior year, so he contacted Professor Virgil Percec, an expert in polymer polymerization in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, hoping to conduct scientific research in the latter's laboratory. practice.
The polymerization direction is difficult, but it is also something he has always hoped to participate in: for example, experiments on the kinetics of living radical polymerization require strict isolation of oxygen , and manual sampling is required every 5 to 10 minutes, and then a series of analyze.
He said: "Although every experiment in those few months was exhausting, I did gain a lot and sharpened my mind at the same time. In the end, the paper on this part of the work was published after graduation."
Later, when When he applied for a doctoral program in the United States, he decided to switch from chemistry as an undergraduate to chemical engineering. Currently, more and more research is focusing on energy-saving and emission-reduction technologies. However, how to clearly demonstrate technological innovation to the academic community and the public still puzzles scientific researchers.
He said: "For most scientific research groups, they rarely think about how to quantitatively describe environmental factors such as greenhouse gas emissions in chemical production. This also makes me feel very novel about related economic analysis and environmental analysis."
"This reminds me that when I first started using the life cycle assessment method, I was exposed to many opinions that changed my original understanding. For example, the debate about the advantages and disadvantages of paper bags and plastic bags, or the current large-scale use of food crops Can making ethanol fuel really reduce carbon emissions? And will it cause a wider problem of hunger? This made me gradually realize that many energy-saving and emission-reducing technologies have good intentions, but they may lead to new problems that are not obvious. , and life cycle assessment can guide everyone to think about these issues more systematically and comprehensively to avoid unintentional mistakes," Luo Yuqing said in the end.
-End-
Reference:
1, O'Dea, R. M., Prada, P. A., Luo, Y., Amitrano, A., Ebikade, E. O., Gottlieb, E. R., ... & Epps III, T. H. (2022). Ambient -pressure lignin valorization to high-performance polymers by intensified reductive catalytic deconstruction. Science advances, 8(3), eabj7523.
