Dr. Tong’s interests of research consist of the following themes: 1) synthesizing biochemicals from renewable resources (e.g., biowastes) to replace their petroleum-based counterparts; 2) fabricating multi-functional bionanocomposites and biomaterials for environmental and human health applications; and 3) designing environmentally benign and energy-efficient processes through optimal process design.
Synthesizing and self-assembling of multi-functional bionanomaterials
Tong’s group has been exploring nano-scale self-assembly and chemical functionalization methods to develop value-added functional biomaterials for applications in the areas of environmental mitigation and human health from the low-cost biowastes from agriculture, biorefineries, and forestry. With support from several federal agencies, Tong’s team has successfully synthesized a glycerol-based intelligent and sensoring food packaging film for a universal, accurate, easy-to-use, and real-time food spoilage monitoring system. Besides, smart materials with controllable release functions have been synthesized from low-cost agricultural/forestry residues to improve nutrient (N, P, and micronutrients) utilization efficiency in agriculture and reduce environmental pollution to soil and water. The adaption of chemical functionalization and self-assembly methodologies to these waste materials is very challenging due to their macromolecular structures, heterogeneous properties, poor solubility, and the disturbance of impurities. Tong’s team targets new self-assembling and functionalization methodologies and reaction systems for fabricating these kinds of biomaterials for environmental, food safety, agricultural applications.
Waste-treat-waste & Nutrients Recovery
Developing aromatic biochemicals from renewable resources
A recent shift from typical petroleum refinery to lighter feeds (shale gas) has resulted in an approximately 20% reduction of aromatic platform chemicals in the US. To address this issue, Tong’s group has developed new and simple chemical pathways to synthesize aromatic monomers (e.g., p-xylene or terephthalate (PTA)) from biomass-derived chemicals as the precursors of polyethylene terephthalate (PET). In addition, Tong’s group is exploring new oxidative agents/catalysts to selectively convert lignin, which is the most abundant aromatic polymer in nature, and largely reclaimed as waste in biorefineries, to high-value aromatic monomers (e.g., vanillin and aromatic acids) and hydrocarbon precursors (e.g., for jet fuel C8-C16) under benign reaction conditions. Tong’s group targets a new oxidative catalyst system and reaction pathways to improve biochemical selectivity and yield as well as reduce reaction harshness.
Waste Valorization Process
Process control and machine learning techniques in the biochemical process and food supply chain
Recognizing that the randomness introduced in reactants is a critical issue in large-scale processing of renewable resources, especially biowastes, Tong’s group has been seeking solutions to control and model the sustainable processes with feedstock uncertainty. We applied the tools from dynamic stochastic programming theory to the biochemical processes to control the inherent randomness of the process. By considering reaction kinetics and uncertainty of feedstocks, two approaches, namely stochastic dual dynamic programming (SDDP) and the finite Markov decision process (MDP), are implemented to the lignin valorization process for an approximate solution to optimize the process. Besides, machine learning techniques and image analysis coupled with our pre-synthesized film sensor have been applied to the food supply chain to provide real-time food quality detection, which can significantly reduce food waste and loss. Tong’s group will target reinforce learning-based MDP (RL-MDP) for sustainable process control.
