The Bell Choir - Sean Dee

The project I am working on is examining the use of ionic liquids in the field of alternative fuels. It is funded through the Energy Biosciences Institute with BP. Cellulose is a very stable polymer that is hard to access in its natural crystalline state due to internal hydrogen bonding networks. Ionic liquids have been shown to have high solubility of cellulose, due to the ability of their anions to interrupt this hydrogen bonding network. The usefulness of this technology has been applied in biomass pretreatment for enzymatic conversion, but there has been limited investigation into the catalytic conversion of biomass to fuels using ionic liquids as a reaction solvent. Our project has four main objectives. First we aim to synthesize and test ionic liquids for dissolution of cellulose. We will start with microcrystalline cellulose, with an eventual goal of dissolution of a biomass feedstock, such as switch grass. Second, we intend to demonstrate that we can break down the cellulose into a solution of sugars, using acid hydrolysis. Next, we will use metal catalyzed reaction mechanisms (hydrogenation, hydrolysis, dehydration, dehydrogenation, deoxygenation, condensation, oxidation, etc) to take sugars to fuel products using high throughput techniques. Lastly, after obtaining a desired fuel product, we intend to separate it out from the process, and recycle the ionic liquid and undesired products or unreacted feedstock.