10th Anniversary of Catalysts: Contributions in Biomass Catalytic Conversion for a Sustainable Future

A special issue of Catalysts (ISSN 2073-4344). This special issue belongs to the section "Biomass Catalysis".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 7221

Special Issue Editors

Chemical & Petroleum Engineering Department, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA
Interests: heterogeneous catalysis; advanced catalyst synthesis; in situ/operando spectroscopy and spectrokinetics; reaction kinetics; biomass and alternative feedstock conversion; oxidation reactions; fuels and chemicals
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Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università di Pisa, Via G. Moruzzi 13, 56124 Pisa, Italy
Interests: catalysis for sustainability; MW-assisted chemistry; nanomaterials; catalytic conversion; lignocellulosic biomass; biofuels synthesis; heterogeneous catalysts; synthesis of tailored catalytic systems
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Departamento de Química Orgánica, Universidad de Córdoba, Campus de Rabanales, Edificio Marie Curie (C-3), Ctra Nnal IV-A, Km 396, Córdoba, Spain
Interests: green chemistry; biomass valorization; heterogeneous catalysis; nanomaterial design
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College of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China
Interests: biomass catalytic conversion; heterogenous catalysis; catalytic materials
Instituto de Tecnología Química (UPV-CSIC), Universitat Politècnica de València-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Avenida de los Naranjos s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Interests: heterogeneous catalysis; reaction mechanisms on molecular scale; biomass transformation; hydrothermal carboniation; biomass platform molecules; fine chemicals
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This year, the journal Catalysts celebrates its 10th anniversary, and our Section will commemorate this occasion with a Special Issue entitled: “10th Anniversary of Catalysts: Contributions in Biomass Catalytic Conversion for a Sustainable Future”.

In the not-so-distant future, catalytic technologies that produce today’s everyday chemicals, materials, and fuels will have significant renewable feedstock components and be developed such that their impact on the environment is minimal. This will be required to have a more sustainable chemical industry, and biomass will certainly play a major contributing role to achieve this goal. Significant research on catalytic biomass conversion has been ongoing for the past few decades to create such economically viable, environmentally friendly, and sustainable technologies. As part of these efforts, this Special Issue of Catalysts aims to publish Communications, Featured and Review articles with state-of-art contributions and recent advances on the catalytic conversion of biomass and its derivatives towards chemicals, materials, and fuels. Topics will include but are not limited to the understanding of catalytic processes for biomass conversion at the micro, meso, and macro scale, including: 1) rational design of next generation catalysts; 2) characterization of catalyst structures and reaction intermediates; 3) elucidation of catalytic mechanisms and kinetics; 4) catalytic processes and technologies.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of our journal, we look forward to receiving your or your team members’ original research or review manuscripts in this Special Issue.

Dr. Juan J. Bravo-Suarez
Prof. Dr. Anna Maria Raspolli Galletti
Prof. Dr. Rafael Luque
Dr. Gartzen Lopez
Dr. Qiying Liu
Dr. Michael Renz
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Catalysts is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Biomass valorization
  • Thermo-catalytic processes
  • Homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis
  • Hydrodeoxygenation
  • Hydrolysis
  • Depolymerization
  • Lignocellulosic biomass
  • Sugars, lipids, bio-syngas, lignin, and bio-oil conversion
  • Biofuels
  • Bioderived chemicals
  • Biomass catalytic conversion technologies
  • Biomass conversion technoeconomic and life cycle analyses
  • Hydrogen

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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24 pages, 5093 KiB  
Article
Lignin Depolymerization in the Presence of Base, Hydrogenation Catalysts, and Ethanol
by Iuliia Romanenko, Felix Kurz, Robert Baumgarten, Ivana Jevtovikj, Jean-Pierre Lindner, Arunabha Kundu, Alois Kindler and Stephan Andreas Schunk
Catalysts 2022, 12(2), 158; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/catal12020158 - 27 Jan 2022
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 3495
Abstract
Being the major renewable source of bio-aromatics, lignin possesses considerable potential for the chemical industry as raw material. Kraft lignin is a couple product of paper industry with an annual production of 55,000,000 ton/y and is considered the largest share of available lignin. [...] Read more.
Being the major renewable source of bio-aromatics, lignin possesses considerable potential for the chemical industry as raw material. Kraft lignin is a couple product of paper industry with an annual production of 55,000,000 ton/y and is considered the largest share of available lignin. Here we report a facile approach of Kraft lignin depolymerization to defined oligomeric units with yields of up to 70 wt.%. The process implies utilization of an aqueous base in combination with a metal containing catalyst and an alcohol under non-oxidative atmosphere at 300 °C. An advantage of the developed approach is the facile separation of the oligomer product that precipitates from the reaction mixture. In addition, the process proceeds without char formation; both factors make it attractive for industrialization. The suppression of the repolymerization processes that lead to char formation is possible when the combination of metal containing catalyst in the presence of an alcohol is used. It was found that the oligomer units have structural features found in phenol-acetaldehyde resins. These features result from the base catalyzed condensation of lignin fragments with in situ formed aldehydes. Catalytic dehydrogenation of the alcohol provides the latter. This reaction pathway is confirmed by the presence condensation products of Guerbet type reactions. Full article
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Review

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19 pages, 3198 KiB  
Review
Sn-Beta Catalyzed Transformations of Sugars—Advances in Catalyst and Applications
by Ping Zhu, Hu Li and Anders Riisager
Catalysts 2022, 12(4), 405; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/catal12040405 - 06 Apr 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2954
Abstract
Beta zeolite modified with Sn in the framework (Sn-Beta) was synthesized and introduced as a heterogeneous catalyst for Baeyer–Villiger oxidations about twenty years ago. Since then, both syntheses strategies, characterization and understanding as well as applications with the material have developed significantly. Remarkably, [...] Read more.
Beta zeolite modified with Sn in the framework (Sn-Beta) was synthesized and introduced as a heterogeneous catalyst for Baeyer–Villiger oxidations about twenty years ago. Since then, both syntheses strategies, characterization and understanding as well as applications with the material have developed significantly. Remarkably, Sn-Beta zeolite has been discovered to exhibit unprecedented high catalytic efficiency for the transformation of glucose to fructose (i.e., aldoses to ketoses) and lactic acid derivatives in both aqueous and alcoholic media, which has inspired an extensive interest to develop more facile and scalable syntheses routes and applications for sugars transformations. This review survey the progress made on both syntheses approaches of Sn-Beta and applications of the material within catalyzed transformations of sugar, including bottom-up and top-down syntheses and catalyzed isomerization, dehydration, and fragmentation of sugars. Full article
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