TCPBRCBDP · Tandem catalysis for the production of biofuel related chemicals from biomass derived polyols

One promising strategy for the production of biofuels from cellulosic, hemicellulosic and lipid materials is to use polyols as a platform. Recent advances have led to direct and (potentially) large scale production of polyols such as ethylene glycol, glycerol and sorbitol. Nevertheless, the downstream production of valuable fuels from polyols is comparatively lacking. In this project we intend to bridge this gap by developing a new strategy that could directly convert polyols into valuable acetals. To achieve this, a one-pot multi-step process through tandem catalysis is envisaged. Acetals will be produced through classical acetalisation reactions between polyols and aldehydes, with the latter being produced in situ from syngas by a tandem Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) reaction and hydroformylation reaction. An efficient, dual functional hybrid catalyst based on a nanoparticle core to which a homogeneous catalyst is tethered that is capable of both F-T and hydroformylation reaction will be designed and synthesized, which to our knowledge represents the first approach of tandem F-T/hydroformylation catalyst. In-situ spectroscopic techniques, such as IR and NMR, will also be applied to study mechanistic aspects of the reactions. The approaches described herein are of high novelty with respect to both biomass conversion and heterogeneous/homogenous catalysis potentially leading to be the more efficient use of renewable resources.