Catalytic ring-opening dehydration of tetrahydrofuran (THF), itself a product of decarbonylation and reduction of biomass-derived furfural, yields 1,3-butadiene, an important monomer in rubbers and elastomers. It is demonstrated that dehydra-decyclization of THF with phosphorus-containing siliceous self-pillared pentasil (SPP) or MFI structure exhibits high selectivity to butadiene (85–99%) at both low (9%) and high (89%) conversion of THF. High selectivity to pentadiene and hexadiene was also obtained from 2-methyl-tetrahydrofuran and 2,5-dimethyl-tetrahydrofuran, respectively, with phosphorus-containing, all-silica zeolites.

Highly immiscible block copolymers are attractive materials for applications in nanolithography due to their ability to self-assemble on length scales that are difficult to access by conventional lithography. The incorporation of inorganic domains into such block copolymers provides etch contrast that can potentially reduce processing times and costs in nanolithographic applications. We explored thin films of polylactide-poly(dimethylsiloxane)-polylactide (PLA-PDMS-PLA) triblock copolymers as multifunctional nanolithographic templates. We demonstrate the formation of well-ordered arrays of hexagonally packed PDMS cylinders oriented normal to the substrate, the orthogonal etchability of these cylinders and the PLA matrix, and the formation of etch-resistant domains that can be used as pattern transfer masks.

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Catalytic hydrogenation of itaconic acid (obtained from glucose fermentation) yields 3-methyl-tetrahydrofuran (3-MTHF), which then undergoes catalytic dehydra-decyclization to isoprene. It is demonstrated that a one-pot cascade reaction converts itaconic acid to 3-MTHF at ∼80% yield with Pd−Re/C catalyst and 1000 psig H 2 . Subsequent gas-phase catalytic ring opening and dehydration of 3-MTHF with phosphorus-containing zeolites including P-BEA, P-MFI, and P-SPP (self-pillared pentasil) exhibits 90% selectivity to dienes (70% isoprene, 20% pentadienes) at 20−25% conversion.