Biomass processing to value-added chemicals and biofuels received considerable attention due to the renewable nature of the precursors. Here, we report the development of Ru-containing magnetically recoverable catalysts for cellulose hydrogenolysis to low alcohols, ethylene glycol (EG) and propylene glycol (PG). The catalysts are synthesized by incorporation of magnetite nanoparticles (NPs) in mesoporous silica pores followed by formation of 2 nm Ru NPs. The latter are obtained by thermal decomposition of ruthenium acetylacetonate in the pores. The catalysts showed excellent activities and selectivities at 100% cellulose conversion, exceeding those for the commercial Ru/C. High selectivities as well as activities are attributed to the influence of Fe3O4 on the Ru(0)/Ru(4+) NPs. A facile synthetic protocol, easy magnetic separation, and stability of the catalyst performance after magnetic recovery make these catalysts promising for industrial applications.

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Conversion of biomass cellulose to value-added chemicals and fuels is one of the most important advances of green chemistry stimulated by needs of industry. Here we discuss modern trends in the development of catalysts for two processes of cellulose conversion: (i) hydrolytic hydrogenation with the formation of hexitols and (ii) hydrogenolysis, leading to glycols. The promising strategies include the use of subcritical water which facilitates hydrolysis, bifunctional catalysts which catalyze not only hydrogenation, but also hydrolysis, retro-aldol condensation, and isomerization, and pretreatment (milling) of cellulose together with catalysts to allow an intimate contact between the reaction components. An important development is the replacement of noble metals in the catalysts with earth-abundant metals, bringing down the catalyst costs, and improving the environmental impact.

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The aim of SEEP2017 is to bring together the researches within the field of sustainable energy and environmental protection from all over the world.The contributed papers are grouped in 18 sessions in order to provide access to readers out of 300 contributions prepared by authors from 52 countries.We thank the distinguished plenary and keynote speakers and chairs who have kindly consented to participate at this conference. We are also grateful to all the authors for their papers and to all committee members.We believe that scientific results and professional debates shall not only be an incentive for development, but also for making new friendships and possible future scientific development projects. Increasing efforts and resources have been devoted to research during environmental studies, including the assessment of various harmful impacts from industrial, civic, business, transportation and other economy activities. Environmental impacts are usually quantified through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). In recent years, footprints have emerged as efficient and useful indicators to use within LCA. The footprint assessment techniques has provided a set of tools enabling the evaluation of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) -including CO2, emissions and the corresponding effective flows on the world scale. From all such indicators, the energy footprint represents the area of forest that would be required to absorb the GHG emissions resulting from the energy consumption required for a certain activity, excluding the proportion absorbed by the oceans, and the area occupied by hydroelectric dams and reservoirs for hydropower.An overview of the virtual GHG flow trends in the international trade, associating the GHG and water footprints with the consumption of goods and services is performed. Several important indications have been obtained: (a) There are significant GHG gaps between producer's and consumer's emissions -US and EU have high absolute net imports GHG budget. (b) China is an exporting country and increasingly carries a load of GHG emission and virtual water export associated with consumption in the relevant importing countries. (c) International trade can reduce global environmental pressure by redirecting import to products produced with lower intensity of GHG emissions and lower water footprints, or producing them domestically.To develop self-sufficient regions based on more efficient processes by combining neighbouring countries can be a promising development. A future direction should be focused on two main areas: (1) To provide the self-sufficient regions based on more efficient processes by combining production of surrounding countries. (2) To develop the shared mechanism and market share of virtual carbon between trading partners regionally and internationally. HAKAN SERHAD SOYHAN 4 Development in energy sector, technological advancements, production and consumption amounts in the countries and environmental awareness give shape to industry of energy. When the dependency is taken into account in terms of natural...

Despite numerous works devoted to the cellulose hydrogenolysis process, only some of them describe reaction kinetics. This is explained by the complexity of the process and the simultaneous behavior of different reactions. In this work, we present the results of the kinetic study of glucose hydrogenolysis into ethylene- and propylene glycols in the presence of Ru@Fe3O4/HPS catalyst as a part of the process of catalytic conversion of cellulose into glycols. The structure of the Ru-containing magnetically separable Ru@Fe3O4/HPS catalysts supported on the polymeric matrix of hypercrosslinked polystyrene was studied to propose the reaction scheme. As a result of this study, a formal description of the glucose hydrogenolysis process into glycols was performed. Based on the data obtained, the mathematical model of the glucose hydrogenolysis kinetics in the presence of Ru@Fe3O4/HPS was developed and the parameter estimation was carried out. The synthesized catalyst was found to be characterized by the enhanced magnetic properties and higher catalytic activity in comparison with previously developed catalytic systems (i.e., on the base of SiO2). The summarized selectivity towards the glycols formation was found to be ca. 42% at 100% of the cellulose conversion in the presence of Ru@Fe3O4/HPS.

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