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Tunable and selective hydrogenation of the platform chemical 5-hydroxymethylfurfural into valuable C6 building blocks and liquid fuel additives is achieved with copper-doped porous metal oxides in ethanol. A new catalyst composition with improved hydrogenation/hydrogenolysis activity is obtained by introducing small amounts of ruthenium dopant into the previously reported Cu(0.59) Mg2.34 Al1.00 structure. At a mild reaction temperature (100 °C), 2,5-furandimethanol is obtained with excellent selectivity up to >99%. Higher reaction temperatures (220 °C) favor selective deoxygenation to 2,5-dimethylfuran and minor product 2,5-dimethyltetrahydrofuran with a combined yield as high as 81%. Notably, these high product yields are maintained at a substrate concentration up to 10 wt% and a low catalyst loading. The influence of different alcohol solvents on product selectivity is explored. Furthermore, reaction intermediates formed at different reaction temperatures are identified. The composition of these product mixtures provides mechanistic insight into the nature of the reduction pathways that influence product selectivity. The catalysts are characterized by elemental analysis, TEM, and BET techniques before and after the reaction. Catalyst recycling experiments are conducted in batch and in a continuous-flow setup.

a Copper-doped porous metal oxides catalyze the one-pot disassembly of biomass-derived lignin via C-O bond hydrogenolysis and hydrodeoxygenation in supercritical methanol. This catalytic system cleanly converts lignin as well as lignocellulose composites, such as sawdust, to organic liquids with little or no formation of intractable tars or chars. However, this catalyst based on Earth-abundant components also catalyzes less desirable aromatic ring hydrogenations and various methylations that contribute to the diversity of products. In this context, we undertook a quantitative experimental and computational evaluation of model reactions relevant to the reductive disassembly of lignin by this catalyst system in order to determine quantitatively the rates of desirable and less desirable chemical steps that define the overall product selectivities.Global fitting analysis methods were used to map the temporal evolution of key intermediates and products and to elucidate networks that provide guidelines regarding the eventual fates of reactive intermediates in this catalysis system. Phenolic compounds display multiple reaction pathways, but substrates such as benzene, toluene, and alkyl-and alkoxy-substituted aromatics are considerably more stable under these conditions. These results indicate that modifying this catalytic system in a way that controls and channels the reactivity of phenolic intermediates should improve selectivity toward producing valuable aromatic chemicals from biomass-derived lignin. To this end we demonstrate that the O-methylating agent dimethyl carbonate can intercept the phenol intermediate formed from hydrogenolysis of the model compound benzyl phenyl ether. Trapping the phenol as anisole thus gave much higher selectivity towards aromatic products.

The direct conversion of ethanol to higher value 1-butanol is a catalytic transformation of great interest in light of the expected wide availability of bioethanol originating from the fermentation of renewable resources. In this contribution we describe several novel compositions of porous metal oxides (PMO) as highly active and selective catalysts for the Guerbet coupling of ethanol to 1-butanol in the temperature range 180−320 °C. The novel PMO catalysts that do not contain any noble metals are obtained by calcination of a series of hydrotalcite precursors synthesized through modular procedures. In particular, catalyst compositions simultaneously containing Cu and Ni dopants have shown excellent catalytic activities. Up to 22% 1-butanol yield at 56% ethanol conversion was reached in a batch mode; recycling and leaching tests showed excellent robustness of the new catalysts. An extensive characterization by means of several techniques such as powder XRD, SEM, TEM, BET, and NH 3 -and CO 2 -TPD was performed in order to understand structure−activity trends.

Noble-metal-free copper-zinc nanoalloy (<150 nm) is found to be uniquely suited for the highly selective catalytic conversion of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) to potential biofuels or chemical building blocks. Clean mixtures of 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF) and 2,5-dimethyltetrahydrofuran (DMTHF) with combined product yields up to 97 % were obtained at 200-220 °C using 20-30 bar H2 . It is also possible to convert 10 wt % HMF solutions in CPME, with an excellent DMF yield of 90 %. Milder temperatures favor selective (95 %) formation of 2,5-furandimethanol (FDM). The one-pot conversion of fructose to valuable furan-ethers was also explored. Recycling experiments for DMF production show remarkable catalyst stability. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) characterization provides more insight into morphological changes of this intriguing class of materials during catalysis.

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a Benzimidazoles and N--methylbenzimidazoles were synthesized by simply heating 1,2--diaminobenzenes in supercritical methanol over copper--doped porous metal oxides. These catalysts were derived from synthetic hydrotalcites that only contain earth--abundant starting materials. The carbon equivalents needed for the construction of the benzimidazole core originated from the solvent itself, which is known to undergo reforming to hydrogen and carbon monoxide through the formation of formaldehyde intermediate. A variety of 1,2--diaminobenzenes were converted to the corresponding mixtures of benzimidazoles and N--methylated analogues in good yields. Interestingly, the more challenging, but readily available 2-nitroanilines, which require an additional reduction step prior to cyclization, could also be successfully converted to benzimidazoles in high selectivity. Furthermore, various other alcohols were applied besides methanol, to obtain 2--alkyl-and 1,2--dialkylbenzimidazoles. Preliminary mechanistic insights into the origins of N--alkylation as well as the reactivity of the nitro derivatives are discussed.

Catalytic dehydrogenation of ammonia-borane (NH(3)·BH(3), AB) and dimethylamine borane (NHMe(2)·BH(3), DMAB) by the Pd(II) complex [((tBu)PCP)Pd(H(2)O)]PF(6) [(tBu)PCP = 2,6-C(6)H(3)(CH(2)P(t)Bu(2))(2)] leads to oligomerization and formation of spent fuels of general formula cyclo-[BH(2)-NR(2)](n) (n = 2,3; R = H, Me) as reaction byproducts, while one equivalent of H(2) is released per amine-borane equivalent. The processes were followed through multinuclear ((31)P, (1)H, (11)B) variable temperature NMR spectroscopy; kinetic measurements on the hydrogen production rate and the relative rate constants were also carried out. One non-hydridic intermediate could be detected at low temperature, whose chemical nature was explored through a DFT modeling of the reaction mechanism, at the M06//6-31+G(d,p) computational level. The computational output was of help to propose a reliable mechanistic picture of the process.