Instrumental analysis

Wood or lignocellulosic biomass more generally, is a readily available renewable resource, offering sustainable solutions for our growing human population. The core wood polymers - cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin - serve as fundamental components, extending beyond paper production to produce valuable wood sugars, textile fibers, thermoplastics, and fine chemicals. In our project, we are developing enzyme technologies utilizing extremophilic microbe-derived enzymes to break down and modify lignin, remove toxic phenolic compounds, convert cellulose into wood sugars, and advance enzyme-catalyzed cellulose technologies. Additionally, the project focuses on advancing technologies for converting kraft, hydrolysis (and organosolv) and synthetic lignins into porous materials, thermoplastics, and cutting-edge catalysts.

The general goal of the project is to foster the transition to a fully carbon-neutral economy. The objective is to find new effective and low-cost amine-based protic ionic liquids (IL) for latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES). ILs can be considered potential “green” phase change materials (PCM) which have received little attention despite their excellent properties, like high enthalpy of fusion, high density, stability, and the potential for utilizing renewable feedstocks for their production. The project uses both computational and experimental methods for finding the most likely ILs for LHTES applications. Consequently, the study will provide broad fundamental knowledge on the applicability of ILs considering their physicochemical properties as well as toxicity, corrosivity, and stability along with the impact of nanoparticles on their performance.

Georgia produces about 70 thousand tonnes of mandarins annually, 50% of which gets exported. Local fruit juice industry utilizes most of the mandarins left in the country to produce mandarin juice. However, the leftover mandarin pomace causes serious environmental issues as the piled up pomace waste leaches acidic decomposting products as well as essential oils into the environment. Mandarin pomace is a rich source of fine chemicals and the project will develop environmentally friendly technologies to extrat those chemicals from the waste.