
Mark Nimlos
Group Research Manager III-Physics
Mark.Nimlos@nrel.gov
303-384-7704
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7117-775X
The development and deployment of renewable carbon-based transportation fuels, chemicals, and materials is critical to sustainability, energy security, and continued economic growth. Mark Nimlos’ research interests are focused on using thermochemistry to facilitate biomass as a source of renewable carbon, helping grow the bioeconomy. Increasing the use of renewable, biomass-sourced carbon will require developing science and technology for conversion into useful products and demonstrating the performance of these products in existing and future applications. During his 31-year career at NREL, Mark has worked on pyrolysis, gasification, and catalytic fast pyrolysis as conversion technologies to produce biofuels, which are a sustainable, inexpensive energy source for transportation. To facilitate the economics of biorefineries that would produce biofuels, he has recently focused his research efforts on producing chemical and material coproducts from these biofuel conversion processes. Developing uses for these coproducts will help improve the economic resilience of biorefineries and will improve the sustainability of plastics and other carbon-based materials.
Research Interests
Renewable graphite for lithium ion batteries
Catalytic fast pyrolysis coproducts
Partial oxidation of lignin pyrolysis products
Inverse design of biomass-based polymers using machine learning
Kinetic modeling of ether combustion
Affiliated Research Programs
Catalytic Pyrolysis Science (PI)
Computational Pyrolysis Consortium (contributor)
Catalytic Upgrading of Pyrolysis Products (collaborator)
Catalytic Development/Testing: Deconstruction (collaborator)
Thermochemical Platform Analysis (collaborator)
Thermochemical Feedstocks Interface (collaborator)
Areas of Expertise
Chemical reaction energetics and kinetics
Biomass pyrolysis and gasification
Heterogeneous catalysis (partial oxidation and photocatalytic oxidation)
Molecular modeling (quantum modeling and kinetic modeling of reaction and molecular dynamics modeling)
Photochemistry
Molecular spectroscopy
Education
Ph.D., Chemical Physics, University of Colorado at Boulder
B.S., Chemistry, University of Massachusetts
Professional Experience
Group Leader, NREL, Separations and Polymer Sciences (2007–present)
Staff Scientist, NREL (Solar Energy Research Institute) (1990–2007)
Postdoctoral Researcher, Solar Energy Research Institute (1989–1990)
Editorial Boards
Editor, Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis
Featured Work
Biomass Pyrolysis and Gasification
Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis of Biomass: The Reactions of Water and Aromatic Intermediates Produces Phenols, Green Chemistry (2015)
Molybdenum Incorporated Mesoporous Silica Catalyst for Production of Biofuels and Value-Added Chemicals via Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis, Green Chemistry (2015)
Decomposition of Model Compounds
The Thermal Decomposition of the Benzyl Radical in a Heated Micro-Reactor. I. Experimental Findings, Journal of Chemical Physics (2015)
Polarized Matrix Infrared Spectra of Cyclopentadienone: Observations, Calculations, and Assignment for an Important Intermediate in Combustion and Biomass Pyrolysis, Journal of Physical Chemistry A (2014)
Computational Modeling
Ethanol Dehydration in HZSM-5 Studied by Density Functional Theory: Evidence for a Concerted Process, Journal of Physical Chemistry A (2015)
Biomass Particle Models With Realistic Morphology and Resolved Microstructure for Simulations of Intraparticle Transport Phenomena, Energy & Fuels (2015)
Biomass Preteatment
Investigation of Xylose Reversion Reactions in Dilute Acid Pretreatment, Energy & Fuels (2013)
Glucose Reversion Reaction Kinetics, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (2010)
Spectroscopy
Propargyl Radical: Ab Initio Anharmonic Modes and the Polarized Infrared Absorption Spectra of Matrix-Isolated HCCCH2, Journal of Physical Chemistry A (2005)
Intense, Hyperthermal Source of Organic Radicals for Matrix-Isolation Spectroscopy, Review of Scientific Instruments (2003)
View all NREL Publications for Mark R. Nimlos.
Patents
Naphthalene-Containing Polymers and Methods of Making the Same, U.S. Patent No. 10,364,322 B2 (2019)
Cellobiohydrolase I Enzymes, U.S. Patent No. 8,637,293 (2014)
Share