Will Medlin receives $500,000 NSF award for converting biomass into renewable fuels
±Ê°ù´Ç´Ú±ð²õ²õ´Ç°ùÌýWill Medlin, department chair ofÌýchemical and biological engineering, received a four-year, $500,000 National Science Foundation awardÌýto study new routes for converting biomass into renewable fuels and chemicals. The project, “Collaborative Research: ECO-CBET: Coupled Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Processes for an Environmentally Sustainable Lignin-first Biorefinery," involvesÌýaÌýcollaborative team of scientists from Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder,Ìýthe National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the University of South CarolinaÌýand the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The researchers, who includeÌýexperts in biomass processing, novel catalysts, reaction modeling, machine learningÌýand life cycle assessment, will study how lignin, a naturalÌýrecalcitrant polymer, can be broken down into individual moleculesÌýand how these molecules are converted by catalysts into stable fuels and materials precursors.
Medlin says the specific chemical route the team is studying involves a "so-called lignin firstÌýstrategy,"ÌýÌýin which lignin, one of the most potentially valuable but least utilized components of biomass, is dissolved and processed to useful chemical compounds.
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