2010 Spring Symposium

 
George J. Antos
Direc­tor, Catal­y­sis and Bio­catal­y­sis Pro­gram
Direc­torate for Engi­neer­ing
Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion


Abstract — Catal­y­sis played an impor­tant role in the devel­op­ment of the petro­le­um-derived fuel indus­try into the key part of the world­wide indus­tri­al pic­ture that it is today. For var­i­ous strate­gic rea­sons, a new fuel plat­form based on bio­mass is desired to sup­ple­ment and replace the petro­le­um of today. Corn-derived ethanol from fer­men­ta­tion was the first move­ment. Addi­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy is seen to be nec­es­sary how­ev­er. Where can we seek the tools nec­es­sary to achieve ambi­tious petro­le­um-replace­ment goals? Recent advances in catal­y­sis and bio­catal­y­sis hold great promise for new path­ways to the mass pro­duc­tion of next gen­er­a­tion hydro­car­bon bio­fu­els: green gaso­line, diesel and jet fuel from switch­grass, for­est waste, and agri­cul­tur­al residue. The poten­tial advan­tages of hydro­car­bon pro­duc­tion from lig­no­cel­lu­losic feed­stocks will be dis­cussed, and the newest process path­ways and catal­y­sis impacts will be out­lined. Com­mer­cial­iza­tion efforts will be dis­cussed. Yet gaps in knowl­edge still exist. Fed­er­al fund­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in hydro­car­bon bio­fu­els will be touched on.

Speaker’s Biog­ra­phy — Dr. George J. Antos is cur­rent­ly the Direc­tor of the Catal­y­sis and Bio­catal­y­sis Pro­gram in the Engi­neer­ing Direc­torate at the Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion. This pro­gram receives 150–200 pro­pos­als for uni­ver­si­ty research fund­ing in fun­da­men­tal catal­y­sis, bio­catal­y­sis, bio­mass con­ver­sion, elec­tro­catal­y­sis and pho­to­catal­y­sis each year with mil­lions of dol­lars award­ed annu­al­ly. George joined NSF after a 33+ year career in indus­try with UOP LLC. This expe­ri­ence encom­passed the research, devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of process, cat­a­lyst and mate­r­i­al tech­nolo­gies for the petro­le­um refin­ing and petro­chem­i­cal indus­tries. George has authored and co-authored over 160 US patents, and has develped a large num­ber of pre­sen­ta­tions and papers in the area. George is also an Adjunct Pro­fes­sor with the Chem­i­cal and Bio­log­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Depart­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin, Madi­son and is CEO of Cat­a­lyst Real­iza­tions, Inc., a con­sult­ing com­pa­ny. His edu­ca­tion includes a B.S. in Chem­istry from Iowa State Uni­ver­si­ty, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Chem­istry from North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty.