Lignin-based Sorbent for Carbon Dioxide Sequestration

Kraft lignin is a common byproduct of the forestry industry produced in the paper pulping process. Despite the variety of applications only 1-2 % of the annually produced 50-70 million tons of lignin is used to produce value-added products. Thus the market potential for lignin and its derivatives is grossly underutilized. With a commodity cost of approximately $250/metric ton sodium lignosulfonate is an attractive raw material for the carbon dioxide sequestration process which requires the cheap and durable absorbent to make the sequestration process commercially viable. TDA will develop a new class of biodegradable CO2 sorbents based on Kraft lignin waste to increase its CO2 absorption. The new lignin-based sorbent material can be used to provide cost- effective capture of CO2 from both industrial flue gases and direct air capture (DAC). The new class of sorbents proposed here could also find use in a wide range of gas purification and storage applications and will create another value-added product for the underutilized lignin raw material. Manufacturing a new CO2 absorbent material from the wood-based raw material will address USDA's Strategic Goal 1 for FY 2022-2026: Global Climate Change to Support America's Working Lands Natural Resources and Communities and specifically addresses Objective 1.4. It also addresses three of the core USDA SBIR/STTR program research priorities: a) Increasing the Utility of Forest Grown Materials (8.1.b); b) Climate Change (8.1.e); and c) Sustainable Bioenergy and Development of Value-Added products from Forest Resources (8.1.g).