Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** the united states needs to shift…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** the united states needs to shift from petroleum based chemicals to a drop-in sustainable and biobased alternative at the lowest possible cost by 2030. Our lactic-to-acrylic technology connects rural agricultural value chains to the urban chemicals value chains and provides drop-in BIO-based acrylic acid and acrylates at cost parity to today's petrochemical acrylics at greater than 80% reduction in CO2 emissions (energy efficiency / renewable energy).producing sustainable acrylic acid and acrylates brings significant health and welfare benefits through increased sustainability to the $11 billion, 6.8 million metric ton per annum acrylics value chain used throughout the superabsorbent polymer, paints, coatings, and adhesives markets. Commercialization of our technology will provide high-quality, well-paying stem jobs in rural locations near corn fields, similar to ethanol plants, thereby further promoting agricultually-related manufacturing in the united states. US economic competitiveness in global markets will also be increased through new industrial uses for corn-derived commodity chemicals. The lakril technology includes: (1) a corn-derived lactic feedstock pretreatment process, (2) catalytic dehydration conversion of lactic feedstocks over a bifunctional zeolite catalyst modified by engineered bases, and (3) a separations system to generate high-purity acrylic products. To achieve commercialization and deliver the anticipated benefits to US stakeholders in commercial plants at about 40,000 metric tons per year, we seek to improve our catalytic technology by (a) optimizing the composition of corn-derived lactic feedstocks containing a high water content, (B) developing a robust regeneration procedure for long-term utilization of our catalyst, and (C) scaling up the process 100X into a continuous pilot plant producing 1KG acrylic / day. By accomplishing these technical objectives in the phase II project, we will demonstrate commercial feasibility for the process and be prepared for the next phase of scale-up and commercialization.