Nishant K. Sinha and Matthew Neurock Department of Chemical Engineering, Universityof Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904 (USA) *[email protected] Introduction In 2004, only 2-3% of the 140 billion kilograms of industrial chemicals produced in US were derived from biorenewable resources[1]. The U.S Department of Energy has set goals to produce 10% of the chemicals from renewable resources by th...

Crude glycerol from biodiesel production is a biobased material capable of co-producing biofuels and chemicals. This study aimed to develop a line of Ni catalysts supported on cerium–magnesium (Ce–Mg) to improve the process efficiency of glycerol hydrogenolysis for ethanol and 1,2-propanediol (1,2-PDO). Results showed that catalytic activity was greatly improved by changing the preparation meth...

The reaction mechanism of glycerol hydrogenolysis to 1,2-propanediol over a spinel CuCr2 O4 catalyst was investigated by using DFT calculations. Theoretical models were developed from the results of experimental characterization. Adsorption configurations and energetics of the reactant, intermediates, final product, and transition states were calculated on Cu(1 1 1) and CuCr2 O4 (1 0 0). Based ...

The direct reductive amination of carbonyl compounds with NH3 and H2 is an alternative route to produce primary amines in practical production. The search for efficient and selective catalysts has attracted great interest. In the present work, the reductive amination of heptaldehyde with NH3 was investigated over a Ru-based catalyst. The product selectivities were found to be related with the s...

Furfural is a key bioderived platform chemical whose reactivity under hydrogen atmospheres affords diverse chemical intermediates. Here, temperature-programmed reaction spectrometry and complementary scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) are employed to investigate furfural adsorption and reactivity over a Pt(111) model catalyst. Furfural decarbonylation to furan is highly sensitive to reaction c...