An investigation of the national and global markets for ionic liquids (ILs) within the context of biorefineries, food and beverage and chemical industries was conducted.  One hundred twenty (120) potential customers for lignin-based ILs were interviewed to establish baseline archetypes for IL end users.  The customer interview data was used to generate a value proposition comprising a two-fold value business model:  1)  Intellectual Property Licensing Component = a customized, plug-in biomass depolymerization process to yield functionally versatile starting materials (e.g. benzaldehydes, phenols and benzoic acids) is built in-house at a biorefinery.  2)  Ionic Liquid Production and Direct Sales Component = a fraction of the starting materials generated within the biorefinery will be converted into ILs to produce fermentable sugars from biomass.  Also in-house, biobased ILs can also be used to depolymerize lignin.  (Figure 1)  The remaining fraction of lignin-based starting materials generated at the biorefinery will be converted to "task specific" ILs for sales in other markets (e.g. process chemical solvents/catalysis, lubricants, hydraulics magnetic liquids, etc.).  

Illium Technologies, LLC was created in 2014 to commercialize "Bionic Liquids" - ionic liquids made from lignin and other renewables (e.g. hemicellulose, amino acids, glycerol, plant and microbially-derived natural products).  Illium's core IP, conversion of lignin into ionic liquids, is licensed through Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and has generated significant national and international interest within the ionic liquid and bio-energy communities.  Illium is based in the biomass and business hub of Charlotte, North Carolina and continues to work with LBNL and Austria-based Proionic GmbH to refine the process of converting lignin into task-specific ionic liquids.  In addition to protic benzylammonium ILs, a series of quaternary benzylammonium ILs have proven effective for biomass pretreatment.  The latter compounds show efficacy in 10% IL: 90% water solutions (140'C for 3 hr = 84.4 +/- 8.5% glucose yield; 40.4 +/- 4.9% xylose yield).  This result is significant because it shows that dilute solutions of benzylammonium ILs are effective for low cost biomass pretreatment processes.  Also, benzylammonium ILs are expected to outperform alkylammonium IL in other IL applications owing to their increased thermal stabilities.  Protic benzylammonium IL mixtures - such as those obtained from benzaldehydes (e.g. vanillin and syringaldehyde from oxidative lignin depolymerization) were shown effective in biomass pretreatment.  The utility of cation mixtures will lower the overall production cost for lignin-based ILs.

In total, the project resulted in the publication of two (2) peer-reviewed journal articles on the preparation of ionic liquids and catalysts from biofuel by-products lignin, hemicellulose and glycerol.  Additionally, research from this project produced three (3) juried conference presentations, five (5) grant applications, and training for nine (9) research students (4 of which were female, and 5 of which were minority students). Outreach also included the training of dozens of undergraduate students and several junior faculty in teaching exercises including sustainability of renewable fuels and ionic liquid toxicity.  Lastly, curriculum on lignin chemistry and bio-based ionic liquids will be developed in a new NSF Advanced Technical Education Project ("Chemical and BioEnergy for Sustainability Technology # 1601636), recently awarded to Bronx Community College - City University of New York, and being performed in collaboration with City College, the University of New Haven and the Queens University of Charlotte.

Last Modified: 08/29/2016
Modified by: Aaron M Socha