SBIR/STTR Award attributes
Statement of the problem or situation that is being addressed in your application. Metal-organic frameworks are a class of polymeric material with high internal surface areas, resulting in considerable interest for gas storage and separations applications. These porous materials are typically only made on a laboratory scale via conventional heating methods, where synthetic processes oftentimes involve long reaction times, high temperatures, and low yields. The utilization of metalorganic frameworks as sorbent media creates a need for more efficient, larger scale manufacturing processes than the current state of the art practices. ? General statement of how this problem is being addressed. This small business proposes an innovative and commercially viable approach for producing metal-organic frameworks via a continuous, energy-efficient process enabled by emergent green reaction technologies. The innovation is a two-step process that produces and purifies sorbent materials with direct application to the recovery of radioactive, gaseous materials that result from nuclear power generation. The small business performed several pre-proposal experiments that have demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed process. ? What is to be done in Phase I? The overall goal of the Phase I program is to demonstrate the feasibility and economic viability of the proposed approach. During the Phase I effort, this small business will: (a) demonstrate synthesis of a selected metal-organic framework utilizing a rapid, energy-efficient process; (b) demonstrate scalable processes for the continuous production of the selected material; (c) demonstrate performance of the materials produced for gas adsorption applications, and (d) perform techno-economic analysis to outline pathways for scale up and further development and optimization in Phase II. ? Commercial Applications and Other Benefits. The proposed approach will demonstrate a rapid, economically viable process to produce metal-organic frameworks for gas adsorption applications. Additionally, the process can
