Catalytic fast pyrolysis is a technology that can convert biomass into gasoline ranged aromatics in a single step. By heating biomass quickly to an intermediate temperature, biomass will thermally decompose into small molecules which can fit into zeolite catalyst pores. Inside the catalyst pores, these small molecules undergo a series of reactions where aromatics are formed along with olefins, CO, CO₂, CH₄ and water. Gallium promoted ZSM-5 catalyst has been shown to promote small alkanes aromatization, thus it has the potential to increase aromatic yield in catalytic fast pyrolysis process. The focus of the thesis is to study the behavior of catalyst fast pyrolysis of biomass over Gallium promoted catalyst, and explore various ways to utilize the gas phase olefins to increase the aromatic yield. [CG1]

The effect of reaction parameters (temperature, weight hourly space velocity, and fluidized gas velocity) on catalytic fast pyrolysis of biomass with Ga/ZSM-5 were studied in a fluidized bed reactor using pine saw dust as the biomass feed. The product distribution and hydrocarbon selectivity are shown to be a strong function of temperature and weight hourly space velocity. Compared to ZSM-5 catalyst at the same reaction conditions, Ga/ZMS-5 has been shown to increase the aromatic yield by 40%.

Olefins can be recycled back to the CFP fluidized bed reactor to further increase the aromatic yield. The olefin co-feeding with pine saw dust experiments indicates that co-feeding with propylene can increase the aromatic yield, however, co-feeding with ethylene will cause a decrease in aromatic yield. In both co-feeding experiments, an increase in the amount of coke formed was also observed.

Besides a simple olefin recycle, another possible way to utilize these olefins, while avoiding the high cost to separate them from other gas phase products (CO, CO₂ and CH₄),is adding a secondary alkylation unit after the fluidized bed reactor. The alkylation unit could provide a way to produce additional ethylbenzene after the main CFP process. Three zeolite catalysts (ZSM-5, Y-zeolite and Beta zeolite) were tested in the alkylation unit, and ZSM-5 catalyst shows the highest activity and selectivity in the alkylation of benzene and ethylene.

The crystallization process of LCBPP was completed in time scale less than that of 5%LCBPP and LPP at different supercooling rates. This has been observed in all crystallization experiments using DSC, SALS and Rheometery. LCBPP exhibit stiff behavior at gel point compared to 5%LCBPP and LPP which imply that the small spherulites observed under polarized microscopy are stiff. Understanding of the rheological behavior during crystallization process will help to develop polymer with different processing conditions and applications.

These processes were then incorporated with conventional lithographic techniques to generate patterns on the device scale. The first route involves replacement of the organic acid catalyst with a photoacid generator that restricts acid formation by masking pre-determined regions then exposing to UV light. The second route is similar except that addition of a cross-linking agent limits acid diffusion while reversing the tone of the final pattern. The third route avoids acid diffusion altogether and generates the pattern through reactive ion etching through a sacrificial photoresist. A completely different fourth route was taken and nanoimprint lithography was used to generate sub-micron patterns with alternate block copolymers.

The feasibility of the preliminary devices generated in this thesis has been examined through particle diffusion experiments. Samples were soaked in a fluorescent dye then exposed to multiple sizes of gold nanoparticles. Fluorescence quenching was then monitored to determine pore accessibility.

One MBMS apparatus located at Advanced Light Source (ALS) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was used to identify and measure the mole-fraction profiles of different species in these flames. The MBMS apparatus located at University of Massachusetts Amherst was used to measure the temperature profile of the cyclohexane flame. The temperature profile of two different fuel-rich toluene flames (Ф= 2.02 , Ф = 3.94) and a fuel-lean (Ф=0.452) methane flame were also measured with the UMass apparatus.

In this study, we focused on the SBA-15 material, which is a highly ordered mesoporous silica material with micropores present in the wall. We have studied the synthesis of the material by manipulating various factors that are known to have influence on the porous characteristic of the material. We have aimed our studies particularly on the micropores present in the material. Unlike zeolite materials, which have regular, well characterized pore structures, micropores in the SBA-15 are not ordered, thus may have a very broad pore size distribution. We have synthesized sets of mesoporous silica materials that have characteristics similar to those reported in the literature. Using microwave heating, we were able to synthesize the target material within a short period of time, about 10 to 12-fold reduction of the conventionally known synthesis time. The synthesized materials were initially characterized using XRD and SEM. Adsorption studies were then undertaken on the materials to determine the surface area and pore structure. The interpretation of micropores has heretofore been problematic and the models are ambiguous. Relatively simply ordered, 1-dimensional channel type, zeolite materials were also studied; MTW, MTT, TON, ATS, VET frameworks. Adsorption isotherms of these materials were obtained and simple empirical models were developed to determine the pore size distribution.

Further, a sequential adsorption technique, using n-nonane as a preadsorbate, was used to evaluate the realistic external surface areas of zeolite materials and mesopore surface areas of micro-mesoporous materials. Applying this technique to “multidimensional pore system” will provide another way to obtain the realistic surface area and mesopore size distribution.