Hierarchical Zeolite Catalysts for Renewable Surfactant Chemicals Platform

Current catalytic routes to surfactants used in the $32 billion detergents industry are energy intensive and inefficient, with chemical processes that yield desired products with only 30-40% selectivity, giving poor detergency at high energy cost. There exists an opportunity to significantly reduce the energy intensity of laundry detergents production through the design of a hierarchical catalyst material that can be used to precisely synthesize a new platform of renewable oleofuran sulfonate surfactants with improved detergency properties, reducing production energy intensity of surfactant production by 30% and consumer energy use for laundry applications by as much as 50%. The self-pillared pentasil catalyst materials in this proposal are designed to target the hydrophilic/hydrophobic nature of surfactant molecules with atomically precise pillared catalyst structures that mimic the binding pocket of an enzyme, increasing throughput by three orders of magnitude. Preliminary experimental results show that the oleofuran sulfonate surfactant exceeds the functional capacity of current surfactants by 30%, reducing production energy costs, and performs better in lowtemperatures, reducing consumer energy use. The work outlined in this proposal aims to utilize new catalyst materials to selectively synthesize the oleofuran sulfonate surfactant in high yields. The research will evaluate the targeted design of catalyst materials with tunable structure and catalytic for production of the surfactant. Proposed experiments will utilize liquid phase catalytic systems to evaluate catalyst performance, and structure-activity relationships will identify the precise catalyst attribute that leads to enhanced selectivity to the desired surfactant. This Phase I research will identify the precise catalyst structure that generates the highest yields of the oleofuran sulfonate surfactant, leading to a proof-of-concept for the scale up of technology as part of a Phase II effort. The oleufuran sulfonate surfactant is a cost-competitive solution that reduces detergents industry energy intensity and enables production of drop-in surfactants from renewable sources. The technology provides a competitive advantage in the current laundry surfactants industry by providing a cost-competitive, energy saving product that is bio-renewably sourced. Key Words: laundry detergents, surfactants, hierarchical zeolite catalyst, energy efficiency, biorenewable