Reyes Luyanda, Damian

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    Conversion of biomass derived feedstocks to platform molecules using bifunctional mesostructured silica based catalysts
    (2018-05) Reyes Luyanda, Damian; Cardona Martínez, Nelson; College of Engineering; Hernández Maldonado, Arturo; Martínez Iñesta, María; López Garriga, Juan; Acevedo Rullan, Aldo; Department of Chemical Engineering; Morell, Julio
    The combination of Brønsted acidity with metallic functionality in a mesoporous catalyst offers a potential pathway for the conversion of cellulose into sugar alcohols that may be used as a sustainable source of renewable biorefinery feedstock. Supported Ru catalysts were prepared by evaporative deposition on various ordered mesoporous silicas (SBA-15) with different functionalities and characterized using multiple experimental techniques. We studied the effects of functional group loading, reaction time and temperature on the activity and products yield of the bifunctional catalysts by monitoring the cellulose conversion and the production of sugars and sugar alcohols in a high-pressure batch reactor. The activity of mesoporous silica catalysts increases with an increase in acid loading and the addition of Ru allows control of the selectivity towards sugar alcohols. Ruthenium supported on arenesulfonic acid functionalized mesoporous silica (Ru/SBA-15S) displays the best catalytic performance. Ru/SBA-15S is more hydrothermally stable than SBA-15 but loses a significant fraction of its surface area, crystallinity, acidity, and activity after prolonged exposure to water at 483 K. We further investigated whether SBA-15 can be more stable by grafting Niobia by sol-gel. Our studies showed that grafting SBA-15 using sol-gel makes SBA-15 more stable by recovering SBA-15 surface to avoid SiO2 hydrolysis at elevated temperature and pressure. At the same time, the tendency of amorphous commercial niobium oxide to crystallize in hot water was reduced. Catalytic performance was verified by the bifunctional catalyzed hydrogenation of GVL into Valeric acid using a PFR reactor system.