1. Dehydrogenation catalysis relevant to biomass conversion to chemicals and fuels.
Peter C. Ford, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Santa Barbara
Basic challenges of biomass chemistry are efficient depolymerization and functionality removal. In this context, the project is concerned with catalytic dehydrogenation of polyfunctional alcohols for hydrogen transfer to biomass derived substrates.
In a recent development, we have utilized hydrogen transfer from super-critical methanol for the hydrogenolysis / hydrogenation of aryl ethers as catalyzed by Cu2+ doped porous metal oxides. For example,
Aryl ethers are common motifs in lignins, so this reaction is relevant to schemes for nonenzymatic lignin disassembly via H-transfer from biomass derived alcohols