SBIR-STTR Award

Project Summary: Ayas LLC will be partnering with the University of Alabama (UA) to develop novel glycerol derived compounds (GDCs) as a replacement for undesired solvents. Dr. Sutterlin is a founder of Ayas and while at the University of Missouri was a co-inventor of the most referenced literature to convert glycerol to propylene glycol. Ayas is in the final stages of commercializing this technology. Researchers at UA have developed similar glycerol over catalyst technologies for other GDCs that are of interest to Ayas. Developing processes for glycerol upgrading is a persistent challenge. Recently we and others have shown that alkyl ethers of glycerol are less toxic than existing substances with similar structures derived fromethylene oxide (i.e. petroleum resources) yet possess comparable/superior thermophysical properties which allows their direct use in existing CO capture processes. The University of Alabama (UA) has filed2 several pending patent applications and provisional applications based on our recent discoveries. We have shown that these glycerol-derived compounds (GDCs) have superior thermodynamic properties (e.g. high dipole moments and solvating power) which provide unique tailored media for both separations and bn reactions. Separately glycerol-derived acetals have recently been promoted as "green" household cleaning agents and our approaches can greatly expand these types of products. We envision broad applications across a large library of tailored GDCs and potentially for wide penetration of GDCs as chemical intermediates and "green" consumer products. Development of sustainable and responsible routes from biogenic feedstocks to commodity and consumer chemicals will result in reduced greenhouse gas emissions and toxic waste with commensurate benefits on society and human health. Providing examples of these transformations via heterogeneous catalytic routes and assessing the toxicity of the functionalized molecules of interest will stimulate further studies of these molecules and their adaptation by producers and consumers. Anticipated outcomes of this project are:1) Further demonstration of the excellent and tunable combinations thermo physical and thermodynamic properties of GDC for CO removal applications and as replacements for2 petroleum-derived solvents.2) measurement of reaction kinetics at larger scales and across metal loadings and catalyst supports to determine an optimal catalyst formulation that is reusable over multiple reaction cycles.3) Estimation of the process costs for producing GDCs using inputs from bench scale diether synthesis bench scale dehydrogenation catalyst testing and process modeling activities. These activities are aligned with the SBIR program objectives as they involve chemistries that have never been attempted beyond the laboratory scale and face significant technological hurdles in process intensification but offer the opportunity for significant commercial impact and societal benefit. Further the proposed research is directly relevant to Topic Area 8.8 Biofuels and Biobased Products as it serves to:1) Promote use of biobased glycerol by developing new technologies that lead to increased competitiveness of GDCs which will diversify agriculture's role as a supplier of raw materials toindustry.2) Demonstrate that GDCs will be cost-competitive with equivalent petroleum-based products.3) Improve the economic feasibility of production of biodiesel by creating a route from low-value glycerol to high value chemicals.4) Minimize energy use production of harmful byproducts and life cycle carbon emissions compared to existing petroleum-derived products by leveraging heterogeneous catalytic routes rather than synthetic chemistry approaches that produce significant quantities of byproducts.