Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Magnetic Catalyst for Cellulose breakdown makes Recovery Simpler

Researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China have developed a magnetic solid acid catalyst for efficiently converting cellulose to sugars for ethanol biofuel production, or for production of other bio-sourced chemicals. For more information read D Margolese et alChem. Mater., 2000, 12, 2448 and D Lai et alChemSusChem, DOI: 10.1002/cssc.201000300.

The new catalyst has good hydrothermal stability and is recyclable; the magnetic part of the catalyst allows it to be easily eof choice for this research group, the innovation comes from the addition of a form of Iron oxide nanoparticles and several other agents to allow the catalyst to be recovered magnetically. Catalysts are required for this reaction to occur on any practical level, however they must be extracted from the products of the reaction to ensure purity. Replacing catalysts is often a significant overhead cost; being able to easily recover and re-use this catalyst is a significant advantage. 

The catalyst works effectively on a range of substrates; not only cellulose but also starch and lignocellulose. The efficiency of the catalyst decreases with the complexity of the sugar polymer. With the substrate cellobiose (made of two glucose molecules), the yield was 96%, but with more complex polymextracted from the reaction mixture. Sulfonic acid functionalized silica was the catalyst rs (such as cellulose) this decreases to 50%. This decrease in yield with polymer complexity is common among catalysts, but the fact that this catalyst can be easily reused means that the reaction can simply be run again.

More development is needed, however, to optimize the process and to scale it up to industrial levels. Varying the conditions to find those that produce the best yields is one step that needs to be taken, and also to reduce the production cost to make the catalyst more attractive for commercial use.

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