TRGEL LLC — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.1

Description

Project SummaryWoody Resource Based PolyolsPolyurethane foam is used in cushions packaging and insulation. Fossil fuel based polyurethanemanufacture 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 excellentperformance. Polyols are the main constituent of polyurethane foams. Sustainably polyols aremade from vegetable oils but their performance is constrained by the oil's polymeric structure.Woody resources including forest products construction demolition wood and paper/cardboardwaste can be pyrolytically depolymerized and repolymerized as polyols. Starting from sugarmonomers instead of from unsaturated oils enables precise control over polyol structure.Polyols based on woody biomass promise both high performance and sustainability.This PhI SBIR will synthesize high performance polyols for polyurethane foams fromlevoglucosan the dominant pyrolysis product of cellulose. Utilizing our existing chemistryplatform 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 becharacterized for elastomeric properties. This synthesis-characterization loop informed bystructure-function relationships will iterate to high performance sustainable polyols.Consumer demand for sustainable polyurethane foam will drive demand for levoglucosan. Thehigh 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 sustainablepolyol could garner large market share. Almost all of this polyol would be exported as the USaccounts for only 12% of global PUR demand. $17B in exports accounts for about 3% of the UStrade 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 improveforest management and influence carbon tax export and forestry policy.