SBIR-STTR Award

Woody Resource Based PolyolsPolyurethane foam is used in cushions packaging and insulation. Fossil fuel based polyurethane manufacture releases 3.7 times the polyurethane mass in atmospheric CO. Instead biobased2 polyurethane can capture and sequester atmospheric CO. Consumers want sustainable foams2 but 95% of polyurethane is still made from petrochemicals because of their excellent performance. Polyols are the main constituent of polyurethane foams. Sustainably polyols are made from vegetable oils but their performance is constrained by the oil's polymeric structure. Woody resources including forest products construction demolition wood and paper/cardboard waste can be pyrolytically depolymerized and repolymerized as polyols. Starting from sugar monomers instead of from unsaturated oils enables precise control over polyol structure. Polyols based on woody biomass promise both high performance and sustainability. This Ph I SBIR will synthesize high performance polyols for polyurethane foams from levoglucosan the dominant pyrolysis product of cellulose. Utilizing our existing chemistry platform levoglucosan will be converted to Cerny epoxides which will polymerize as polyols. The woody biomass based polyols will be characterized for melt temperature melt viscosity andhydroxyl value. Then they will be combined with diisocyantes to make foams. The foams will be characterized for elastomeric properties. This synthesis-characterization loop informed by structure-function relationships will iterate to high performance sustainable polyols. Consumer demand for sustainable polyurethane foam will drive demand for levoglucosan. The high value levoglucosan product leverages simultaneous pyrolysis product streams (phenolic oilbiochar and glucose/xylose) to make investment in pyrolysis plants financially attractive. Demonstrating woody biomass based polyols will catalyze organic growth of local pyrolysisplants. The global market of polyols for polyurethane foam is 17B USD/yr. A novel sustainable polyol could garner large market share. Almost all of this polyol would be exported as the US accounts for only 12% of global PUR demand. $17B in exports accounts for about 3% of the US trade deficit. Supplying the world with polyols would sequester 60M tpy of CO or about 1% of2 US CO2 emissions. This rate of polyols production would require 135M tpy of woody biomassor about 13% of US woody biomass production. This new industry can create jobs improve forest management and influence carbon tax export and forestry policy.