I-Corps: New Selective Oxidation Catalysts to Reduce Energy Requirements and Waste Products

New Mexico State University, Las Cruces NM

Investigators

Abstract

Selective oxidation is an important process used to make chemical intermediates for pharmaceutical products, plastics, laboratory chemicals, and industrial fluids. However, some of these selective oxidation processes consume large amounts of energy and produce waste by-products. This I-Corps Project focuses on a technology to reduce co-products and energy requirements during selective oxidation of organic substrates. The proposed innovation aims to improve selective oxidation efficiency by using molecular oxygen as the oxidant without using a co-reductant. Molecular oxygen is the ideal oxidant, because it is cheap and readily available in air. For many challenging substrates, existing catalysts cannot use molecular oxygen as the oxidant unless a co-reductant is used. However, using a co-reductant produces a co-product. The purpose of this project is to investigate the marketability of step-wise no-reductant (SNR) technology. SNR is a patent-pending computationally designed catalyst system and reaction process that could reduce energy requirements and waste by-products. The proposed innovation incorporates newly designed zirconium organometallic catalysts into stepwise no-reductant (SNR) processes to extend the selective oxidation process to more challenging organic substrates without requiring a co-reductant and without producing a co-product. These zirconium organometallic catalysts facilitate efficient molecular oxygen activation by passing through ozone intermediates. A catalyst prototype will be synthesized during the I-Corps project. During the I-Corps training program, the team will interview potential customers to gather market feedback that will aid future commercialization. This market feedback will provide valuable information on which chemical products could benefit the most from the proposed innovation. This market feedback will also identify potential development partners and evaluate pricing models. A commercialization plan will be constructed using this information.