Fully integrated high-throughput methodology for the study of Ni- and Cu-supported catalysts for glucose hydrogenation

Abstract

High-throughput (HT) methodology was applied for the synthesis, characterization and catalytic testing of Cu-and Ni-based catalysts for glucose hydrogenation. Design of Experiment (DoE) was used in all steps. The deposition and reduction of both metals was performed using chemical reduction with hydrazine method. In total 36 catalysts were synthetized, characterized and tested in 5 days. The amount of metal deposited on the support was chosen as the discriminative and determining parameter. The catalysts were tested at low temperature in the hydrogenation of glucose to sorbitol. The results showed that chemical reduction-precipitation method could be performed using fully automatized robots. The deposition of the metals strongly depended on the nature of the support, the temperature of the reduction and hydrazine/H2O ratio. The maximum metal precipitation occurred at higher temperature (70°C) and lower N2H4/H2O ratio (0.04 mol/mol) in both cases. The results clearly showed that glucose conversion is higher for the catalysts synthesized at 70°C compared to the catalysts synthesized at 50°C, irrespective of the metal precursors, supports and hydrazine/water ratios employed during catalysts syntheses. With a total timespan of around 5 days we showed that HT methods applied to all the steps (synthesis, characterization and testing) can significantly reduce the time needed to develop a new catalytic process.

Nickel on nitrogen-doped carbon pellets for continuous-flow hydrogenation of biomass-derived compounds in water

“…33,39 Additionally, several noble metal-based catalytic systems have been reported for Glu hydrogenation in water, such as Ru (Ru/Al 2 O 3 , Ru/C, Ru/zeolite, and Ru/SiO 2 ) 35,[40][41][42][43][44][45] as well as Pt (Pt/Al 2 O 3 , Pt/SiO 2 , and Pt/C). [45][46][47][48] Also, non-noble metals were used, such as Cu (Cu/SiO 2 ) 49 and Ni (Ni/SiO 2 , Ni/TiO 2 , Ni/Al 2 O 3 ). 35,40,49 Furthermore, rapid deactivation of Ni catalysts was observed due to the significant leaching of Ni under the reaction conditions in the initial hours of reaction.…”

“…[45][46][47][48] Also, non-noble metals were used, such as Cu (Cu/SiO 2 ) 49 and Ni (Ni/SiO 2 , Ni/TiO 2 , Ni/Al 2 O 3 ). 35,40,49 Furthermore, rapid deactivation of Ni catalysts was observed due to the significant leaching of Ni under the reaction conditions in the initial hours of reaction. 35,40,49 Also, 5.0 wt% Ru supported on MCM-48, carbon, and TiO 2 each provided Glu conversion of 90-95% with 100% selectivity for Sor in a batch system at 220°C, 2.5 MPa of H 2 , and 25 min of reaction time.…”

“…35,40,49 Furthermore, rapid deactivation of Ni catalysts was observed due to the significant leaching of Ni under the reaction conditions in the initial hours of reaction. 35,40,49 Also, 5.0 wt% Ru supported on MCM-48, carbon, and TiO 2 each provided Glu conversion of 90-95% with 100% selectivity for Sor in a batch system at 220°C, 2.5 MPa of H 2 , and 25 min of reaction time. 2,44 Pan et al 42 demonstrated that Ru on multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWNT) has a higher efficiency than the RANEY® Ni catalyst in the batch setup at 220°C, 4.0 MPa, and 120 min of reaction time.…”

Multi-Step Exploitation of Raw Arundo donax L. for the Selective Synthesis of Second-Generation Sugars by Chemical and Biological Route

“…For this reason, Arundo donax L. is widely used as a substrate for the synthesis of important platform-chemicals, biofuels, and second-generation sugars [14,16,25,27,35,[46][47][48]. In particular, the interest towards the synthesis of xylose and glucose is continuously growing, due to their promising applications in both chemical and biological processes to produce alcohols, acids, oils, hydrocarbons, hydrogen, and other valuable products [1,15,22,34,46,47,[49][50][51][52][53][54][55]. However, up to now, only a few works discussed the employment of acid solid catalysts for the conversion of Arundo donax L. to value-added products, performing the reaction in the presence of ionic liquids as solvents, which have some criticisms related to their high viscosity, toxicity and cost, which strongly limit the sustainability of this approach.…”

Efficient Sorbitol Producing Process through Glucose Hydrogenation Catalyzed by Ru Supported Amino Poly (Styrene-co-Maleic) Polymer (ASMA) Encapsulated on γ-Al2O3

“…With the depletion of the crude-oil reservoirs and fossil fuels worldwide, the demand for the sustainable chemical resources has verified its feasibility to exert the global energy reform and environmental protections [1,2]. As a high-value hexitol derived from the facile biomass glucose [3,4], ranked as one of the top twelve biobased building blocks, investigation on the production of sorbitol efficiently has become more desirable both industrially and academically.…”