(455g) Production of CO2-Negative Building Composites

Current state of the art carbon capture and utilization approaches often center around near-term large volume markets such as enhanced oil recovery and the production of chemicals and fuels. However, from an LCA perspective, the products associated with these markets, such as EOR and large volume fuels, are either CO₂ neutral or, in some cases, CO₂-positive. The US needs to develop new materials to create new market-driven decarbonization in the intermediate term. Despite many chemistries and markets available, CO₂ to value added functional products remain costly and many have not yet been demonstrated at a scale large enough to have a sufficient impact on CO2 emissions. We present here, an approach that combines two large-volume industrial materials (lignin/ lignite and CO₂) into a high-value building material that can aide in reducing CO₂ emissions. We detail how carboxylation of lignin and lignite creates functionalized particles that enable enhanced blending with a polymer matrix in lignin-plastic composites (LPC’s). In this presentation, we present our results on the carboxylation of lignin and lignite particles and describe analytical techniques used for the quantification of carboxylic acids on lignin and lignite. We will also discuss the process parameter optimization, manufacturing, and performance evaluation of lignin polymer composites (LPC) with high filler concentrations against international building codes. We conclude with a technoeconomic and life-cycle analysis that details the cost and CO2 sequestration potential of these LPCs.