AT THE INTERFACE OF SURFACE SCIENCE AND BIOMASS UPGRADING & SUSTAINABLE AVIATION FUEL PRODUCTION
Sener Group’s research focuses on designing and developing catalytic processes for improving the sustainability of lignocellulosic biomass conversion to fuels and chemicals. Catalytic, enzymatic, and microbial conversion are used in different stages of the new generation biorefineries. In a biomass-to-bioproduct processing chain, these processes are interrelated, and this makes the optimization of the overall processing chain challenging. Integrating chemical and biological processes in a biorefinery simplifies the overall process and makes it economically feasible, however, combining these processes requires multi-disciplinary efforts. To address this challenge, the Sener Group develops catalytic processes in collaboration with microbial scientists and techno-economic experts.
Catalytic processes are used in the production of more than 80% of the chemicals. Heterogeneous catalysts are widely used due to ease of separation; however, the active sites are not as well-defined as the homogeneous catalysts. Single Atom Catalysts (SACs) are heterogeneous catalysts showing homogeneous catalyst properties. Additionally, supported multi-metallic catalysts are an important class of materials owing to their enhanced activity, selectivity and/or stability that surpasses their monometallic counterparts.
Dr. Sener’s background in homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, as wells SACs enables the development of innovative solutions to sustainable fuel and chemical production from lignocellulosic biomass. Sener Research Group envisions using catalytic processes to expand biomass-to-bioproduct processing chains into a feedstock agnostic platform that produces Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs) and chemicals from the lignin and sugar fractions of the biomass. This research is part of global efforts by academic, industrial, and government entities to transform the commercial aviation industry to be net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.