Economic and Self-Sustaining Production of Saleable Products from Waste Anions Using Phase-Transfer Catalysis--PTC Value Recov-ery, 900 Briggs Road, Suite 130, Mt Laurel, NJ 08054-4114; 856-642-2080
Dr. Marc Halpern, Principal Investigator
Mr. Peter J. Joyce, Business Official
DOE Grant No. DE-FG02-99ER82864
Amount: $723,700

Many chemical byproducts, which could be converted into useful commercial products, are generated as waste in hundreds of large volume commercial industrial processes. When these byproducts are organic (e.g. phenol derivatives), significant quantities of waste, oftentimes hazardous, pollute the environment and eventually are converted into greenhouse gas (CO₂) by incineration or biological treatment. In addition, this waste represents significant cost and lost opportunity because it represents inefficient use of raw materials. This project will use Phase-Transfer Catalysis (PTC) technology to produce useful and saleable products from wasted byproducts -- just as it does from hundreds of purchased chemicals in hundreds of commercial processes in a cost efficient manner. In the presence of an appropriate phase transfer catalyst and appropriate conditions, the targeted byproduct species in an aqueous or organic stream will be reacted with a complementary substrate (either nucleophilic or electrophilic, depending on the nature of the byproduct) to make a desirable and saleable product. The Phase I project provided the proof-of-concept for recovering and reacting the commercially important family of high volume hazardous waste and byproduct streams which contain phenol and phenol derivatives. The phenol and phenol derivatives were extracted from low concentration (~1wt%,) aqueous streams and successfully reached with a variety of useful electrophiles to produce useful products. Phase II will explore many more major applications that should realize the benefits of PTC in order to advance the technology into more diverse chemistries and industries. In addition, the reaction engineering of these systems will be fully developed and a pilot plant demonstration will be achieved.

Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: This technology should convert large volumes of phenolic waste and byproducts into useful products such as monomers, and will convert other large volume nucleophilic and electrophilic byproducts into saleable products. The technology should also reduce the production of greenhouse gases and reduce the energy load by reducing consumption of natural resources.