CAS: Catalytic funneling and upgrading of biomass-derived phenols and polyols

在化学系化学催化项目的支持下，加州大学圣巴巴拉分校的Abu-Omar教授正在研究用于制造可再生化学原料的催化剂的开发。目前，用于制造聚合物的绝大多数化学构件来自不可再生的石油。生物质是最丰富的可再生碳源，为生产原料化学品提供了潜在的石油替代品。目前使用生物质作为工业相关单体的可再生来源的障碍是生物质的解构导致分子的混合物，这需要高能量输入用于分离和进一步转化。Abu-Omar教授和他的研究团队正在设计金属氧化物催化剂，并在分子水平上研究它们与生物质衍生化学品的反应化学，以更好地了解和提高这些过程的选择性，从而选择性地提供重要的单体。协同地，正在开发一门新生水平的本科生化学课程，称为“数字可持续性”，重点是为来自广泛学科的学生提供分析技能，以使用化学和系统水平方法的组合来评估日常生活中所做选择的可持续性。需要新的催化剂来提高生物质加氢脱氧和脱水中的反应性和控制选择性-衍生分子Abu-Omar教授和他的研究小组正在通过将过渡金属位点与金属氧化物上的受控酸性位点相结合来解决这个问题，以定制产品选择性。具体而言，在氧化钨上沉积定义明确的铂纳米颗粒被用于评估影响这些系统中的选择性的结构-功能关系，并且正在询问硫酸化氧化锆催化的山梨醇向异山梨醇的转化，以更好地理解该过程的机制并进一步优化反应性。两个项目共同的实验方法是通过反应机制的动力学研究，同位素标记实验和建立自由能关系来研究结构-功能关系。这些活动也同时提供了跨合成，催化，化学动力学和绿色化学多学科领域的研究生培训。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

With the support of the Chemical Catalysis Program in the Division of Chemistry, Professor Abu-Omar of the University of California, Santa Barbara is studying the development of catalysts for making renewable chemical feedstocks. Currently, the vast majority of chemical building blocks used to make polymers come from nonrenewable petroleum. Biomass is the most abundant renewable carbon source and offers a potential alternative to petroleum for producing feedstock chemicals. A current barrier to using biomass as a renewable source for industrially relevant monomers is that the deconstruction of biomass leads to mixtures of molecules, which require high energy input for separation and further transformation. Professor Abu-Omar and his research team are designing metal oxide catalysts and investigating their reaction chemistries on the molecular level with biomass-derived chemicals to better understand and improve the selectivity of these processes for selectively providing important monomers. Synergistically, a freshman-level undergraduate chemistry course is being developed called "Sustainability by the Numbers" and is focused on providing students from a broad range of disciplines with the analytical skills to evaluate the sustainability of choices made in daily life using a combination of chemistry and a systems level approach.New catalysts are needed to improve reactivity and control selectivity in the hydrodeoxygenation and dehydration of biomass-derived molecules. Professor Abu-Omar and his research group are addressing this problem by combining transition metal sites with controlled acidic sites on metal oxides to tailor product selectivity. Specifically, the deposition of well-defined platinum nanoparticles on tungsten oxide is being used to evaluate structure-function relationships that effect selectivity in these systems and sulfated zirconia-catalyzed conversion of sorbitol to isosorbide is being interrogated to better understand the mechanism of the process and further optimize reactivity. Experimental approaches common to both projects are the study of structure-function relationships through kinetic studies of reaction mechanisms, isotope labeling experiments, and establishing free energy relationships. These activities are also simultaneously providing graduate student training in multidisciplinary fields of chemistry spanning synthesis, catalysis, chemical kinetics, and green chemistry.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.