Direct conversion of cellulose into acetol on bimetallic Ni-SnOx/Al2O3 catalysts

From sugars to aliphatic amines: as sweet as it sounds? Production and applications of bio-based aliphatic amines

Aliphatic amines encompass a diverse group of amines that include alkylamines, alkyl polyamines, alkanolamines and aliphatic heterocyclic amines. Their structural diversity and distinctive characteristics position them as indispensable components across multiple industrial domains, ranging from chemistry and technology to agriculture and medicine. Currently, the industrial production of aliphatic amines is facing pressing sustainability, health and safety issues which all arise due to the strong dependency on fossil feedstock. Interestingly, these issues can be fundamentally resolved by shifting toward biomass as the feedstock. In this regard, cellulose and hemicellulose, the carbohydrate fraction of lignocellulose, emerge as promising feedstock for the production of aliphatic amines as they are available in abundance, safe to use and their aliphatic backbone is susceptible to chemical transformations. Consequently, the academic interest in bio-based aliphatic amines via the catalytic reductive amination of (hemi)cellulose-derived substrates has systematically increased over the past years. From an industrial perspective, however, the production of bio-based aliphatic amines will only be the middle part of a larger, ideally circular, value chain. This value chain additionally includes, as the first part, the refinery of the biomass feedstock to suitable substrates and, as the final part, the implementation of these aliphatic amines in various applications. Each part of the bio-based aliphatic amine value chain will be covered in this Review. Applying a holistic perspective enables one to acknowledge the requirements and limitations of each part and to efficiently spot and potentially bridge knowledge gaps between the different parts.

Carbon-Supported Ru-Ni and Ru-W Catalysts for the Transformation of Hydroxyacetone and Saccharides into Glycol-Derived Primary Amines

Nitrogen-containing molecules are used for the synthesis of polymers, surfactants, agrochemicals, and dyes. In the context of green chemistry, it is important to form such compounds from bioresource. Short-chain primary amines are of interest for the polymer industry, like 2-aminopropanol, 1-aminopropan-2-ol, and 1,2-diaminopropane. These amines can be formed through the amination of oxygenated substrates, preferably in aqueous phase. This is possible with heterogeneous catalysts, however, effective systems that allow reactions under mild conditions are lacking. We report an efficient catalyst Ru-Ni/AC for the reductive amination of hydroxyacetone into 2-aminopropanol. The catalyst has been reused during 3 cycles demonstrating a good stability. As a prospective study, extension to the reactivity of (poly)carbohydrates has been realized. Despite a lesser efficiency, 2-aminopropanol (9 % yield of amines) has been formed from fructose, the first example from a carbohydrate. This was possible using a 7.5 %Ru-36 %WxC/AC catalyst, composition allowing a one-pot retro-aldol cleavage into hydroxyacetone and reductive amination. The transformation of cellulose through sequential reactions with a combination of 30 %W2C/AC and 7.5 %Ru-36 %WxC/AC system gave 2 % of 2-aminopropanol, corresponding to the first example of the formation of this amine from cellulose with heterogeneous catalysts.

Cellulolytic bacterium characterization and genome functional analysis: An attempt to lay the foundation for waste management

Lignocellulosic waste has offered a cost-effective and food security-wise substrate for the generation of biofuels and value-added products. Here, whole-genome sequencing and comparative genomic analyses were performed for Serratia sp. AXJ-M. The results showed that strain AXJ-M contained a high proportion of strain-specific genes related to carbohydrate metabolism. Furthermore, the genetic basis of strain AXJ-M for efficient degradation of cellulose was identified. Cellulase activity tests revealed strong cellulose degradation ability and cellulase activities in strain AXJ-M. mRNA expression indicated that GH1, GH3 and GH8 might determine the strain's cellulose degradation ability. The SWISS-MODEL and Ramachandran Plot were used to predict and evaluate the 3D structure, respectively. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) were used to analyze the cellulose degradation products. Further research is needed to elucidate the cellulose degradation mechanism and to develop industrial applications for lignocellulosic biomass degradation and waste management.

Nitrogen-Containing Hydrochar: The Influence of Nitrogen-Containing Compounds on the Hydrochar Formation

Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) of fructose and urea containing solutions was conducted at 180 °C to study the influence of nitrogen-containing compounds on conversion and product properties. The concentration of fructose was fixed, while the concentration of urea was gradually increased to study its influence on the formation of nitrogen-containing hydrochar (N-HC). The degradation of urea has an important influence on the HTC of fructose. The Maillard reaction (MR) promotes the formation of N-HC in acidic conditions. However, in alkaline conditions, MR promotes the formation of bio-oil at the expense of N-HC. Alkaline conditions reduce N-HC yield by catalyzing fragmentation reactions of fructose and by promoting the isomerization of fructose to glucose. The results showed that adjusting the concentration of nitrogen-containing compounds or the pH value of the reaction environment is important to force the reaction toward the formation of N-HC or N-bio-oil.

Reaction Route Selection for Cellulose Hydrogenolysis into C2/C3 Glycols by ZnO-Modified Ni-W/β-zeolite Catalysts

A β-zeolite-supported nickel and tungsten catalyst (Ni-W/β) was employed to generate C2/C3 glycols (ethylene and propylene glycols) in a satisfactory yield from cellulose. After optimizing the acidity of the support, the Ni-W synergy and the co-catalyst, the yield of C2/C3 glycols reached 70.1% (C %), with propylene glycol accounting for 51.1% of the product. This performance was attributed to the effective control of the major reaction steps, namely, hydrolysis, isomerization, retro-aldol condensation and hydrogenation, by the tailored Ni-W-ZnO/β catalyst. The characterization and reaction results indicated that the cellulose hydrolysis step was promoted by the appropriate acidic sites of the β-zeolite, and the reaction routes to C2/C3 glycols were influenced by the mass loading of Ni-W through the synergy of nickel and tungsten oxide, in which Ni is effective in the hydrogenation while W facilitates bond cleavage via a retro-aldol condensation (C6 to C2/C3). Moreover, with the leaching of metal during four cycles of reuse, the catalytic performance was also influenced by the synergy of Ni and W. In addition, the isomerization of glucose to fructose was promoted by ZnO and afforded a high yield of propylene glycol.

Selective Conversion of Cellulose to Hydroxyacetone and 1-Hydroxy-2-Butanone with Sn-Ni Bimetallic Catalysts

The high-value-added chemicals hydroxyacetone (HA) and 1-hydroxy-2-butanone (HB) were produced from agricultural waste over a Ni₃ Sn₄ -SnO_x catalyst. The Sn-Ni intermetallic compound and SnO_x acted as the active sites for HA and HB production by selectively cleaving the target C-C and C-O bonds. Approximately 70 % of the total HA and HB yield was obtained by selective hydrogenolysis of cellulose. This strategy expands the application of cellulose towards renewable production of high-value C₃ and C₄ keto-alcohols from cellulosic biomass.

Chemocatalytic Conversion of Cellulose into Key Platform Chemicals

Chemocatalytic transformation of lignocellulosic biomass to value-added chemicals has attracted global interest in order to build up sustainable societies. Cellulose, the first most abundant constituent of lignocellulosic biomass, has received extensive attention for its comprehensive utilization of resource, such as its catalytic conversion into high value-added chemicals and fuels (e.g., HMF, DMF, and isosorbide). However, the low reactivity of cellulose has prevented its use in chemical industry due to stable chemical structure and poor solubility in common solvents over the cellulose. Recently, homogeneous or heterogeneous catalysis for the conversion of cellulose has been expected to overcome this issue, because various types of pretreatment and homogeneous or heterogeneous catalysts can be designed and applied in a wide range of reaction conditions. In this review, we show the present situation and perspective of homogeneous or heterogeneous catalysis for the direct conversion of cellulose into useful platform chemicals.

Direct conversion of C6 sugars to methyl glycerate and glycolate in methanol

The present work deals with the one-pot conversion of C6 sugars to methyl glycerate and glycolate via a cascade of retro-aldol condensation and oxidation processes catalyzed by using MoO₃ as the Lewis acid catalyst and Au/TiO₂ as the oxidation catalyst in methanol. Methyl glycerate (MGLY) is the product of C6 ketose (fructose), while methyl glycolate (MG) is produced from C6 aldose (mannose, glucose). It is found that a good one-pot match between two reactive processes is the key to the production of MGLY and MG with high yield (27.6% MGLY and 39.2% MG). A separated retro-aldol condensation and oxidation process greatly decreases their yields, and even no MGLY can be obtained in this separated process. We attribute this to high instability of glyceraldehyde/glycolaldehyde and their different reaction pathways which mainly depend on whether acetalization of retro-aldol products (glyceraldehyde and glycolaldehyde) occurs with methanol or not. This result opens a new prospect on the accumulation of C3 products other than lactate from biomass-derived carbohydrates.

Methyl glycerate (MGLY) and methyl glycolate (MG) are directly produced in maximum yield by the one-pot conversion of hexose, and the formation of MGLY and MG experience different reaction routes.

Lanthanum oxycarbonate modified Cu/Al2O3 catalysts for selective hydrogenolysis of glucose to propylene glycol: base site requirements

Moderate and strong base sites play a key role in glucose hydrogenolysis over bifunctional Cu–La₂O₂CO₃/Al₂O₃ catalysts.

Understanding paper degradation: identification of products of cellulosic paper decomposition at the wet-dry "tideline" interface using GC-MS

Cellulose paper degradation products forming in the "tideline" area at the wet-dry interface of pure cellulose paper were analyzed using gas chromatography-electron ionization-mass spectrometry (GC-EI-MS) and high-resolution electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS, LTQ Orbitrap) techniques. Different extraction protocols were employed in order to solubilize the products of oxidative cellulose decomposition, i.e., a direct solvent extraction or a more laborious chromophore release and identification (CRI) technique aiming to reveal products responsible for paper discoloration in the tideline area. Several groups of low molecular weight compounds were identified, suggesting a complex pathway of cellulose decomposition in the tidelines formed at the cellulose-water-oxygen interface. Our findings, namely the appearance of a wide range of linear saturated carboxylic acids (from formic to nonanoic), support the oxidative autocatalytic mechanism of decomposition. In addition, the identification of several furanic compounds (which can be, in part, responsible for paper discoloration) plus anhydro carbohydrate derivatives sheds more light on the pathways of cellulose decomposition. Most notably, the mechanisms of tideline formation in the presence of molecular oxygen appear surprisingly similar to pathways of pyrolytic cellulose degradation. More complex chromophore compounds were not detected in this study, thereby revealing a difference between this short-term tideline experiment and longer-term cellulose aging.

The technology of straw sugar conversion to diol chemicals

Real biomass was the starting material for diols, a nice process integration was outlined, and the reaction parameters were carefully optimized.

Influence of support acidity on the performance of size-confined Pt nanoparticles in the chemoselective hydrogenation of acetophenone

Chemoselectivity of hydrogenation depends on strength of the covered BAS, whereas the free BAS enhance the rate.