Novel synthesis method and science based tuning of mesoporous graphitic carbons as catalysts for oxidative dehydrogenation of alcohols

催化材料是化学工业的关键组成部分。作为改变游戏规则的技术，新型催化系统的开发对于减少环境足迹至关重要。在过去的二十年中，仅碳基材料可以作为一类新的催化剂引入。特别是纳米碳在直链烷烃氧化脱氢反应中的应用，获得了令人瞩目的产率和选择性。然而，对于工业应用，这种纳米材料在其合成的规模扩大、由纳米材料的固定床引起的压降和不清楚的健康风险方面存在一些缺点。因此，替代目前使用的碳纳米材料作为催化剂是令人感兴趣的。使用碳化物衍生的模型碳，我们最近可以证明，新型多孔碳粉显示出与纳米碳相当的催化性能。此外，这些材料显示出与普通活性炭粉末一样的处理性能。在该提案的初步工作中，我们可以证明，通过活性炭（AC）的真空退火，也可以合成更可持续的中孔碳和石墨碳。这些AC可以来自木材，椰子，泥炭或农业废物等来源，并且将是产生所需碳的更生态的方式。为了通过新的合成方法调整催化剂，设想推导出前体性质、真空退火条件和石墨化催化剂对所得材料性质的影响。该项目不仅将停止开发AC衍生的中孔石墨碳的新合成方法，而且还将使用和优化这些材料用于醇氧化脱氢为醛。由于石油峰值和温室气体问题，未来在化学工业中使用化石石油和天然气是有问题的，化学工业的最大挑战之一是向可持续原料过渡。在这里，未来重要的平台化学品可以是醇类，因为它们可以可持续地生产（例如通过发酵生产乙醇和丁醇）。从这个意义上讲，从这些醇的ODH中获得醛可以直接导致重要的化学工业中间体。此外，所研究的碳材料将取代经典的脱氢催化剂，如贵金属或金属氧化物。从少数报道来看，可用的碳催化剂可以实现高选择性或在温和的工艺条件下操作，这使得它们成为有吸引力的替代品。对于该催化应用中的材料优化，我们希望从根本上了解耦合醇底物和碳材料对催化性能的影响。从这个意义上讲，材料的合成、表征、催化实验和催化机理的推导将齐头并进。通过德中合作，这一点成为可能，从而可以将所需的知识和方法联合收割机结合起来。

Catalytic materials are key components in chemical industry. As game changing technology development of novel catalytic system is crucial for reducing the environmental footprint. In the past two decades solely carbon based materials could be introduced as a new class of catalysts. Especially nanocarbons were investigated in the oxidative dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene or chain alkanes, where attractive yields and selectivity were achieved. Nevertheless, for an industrial application such nano-materials keep some drawbacks with regard to the scale up of their synthesis, the pressure drop induced by a fix bed of nanomaterials and unclear health risks. Thus replacing currently employed carbon nano-materials as catalyst is of interest. Using carbide-derived model carbons we could recently demonstrate that novel porous carbon powders show equivalent catalytic performance as nanocarbons. In addition, these materials show handling properties like normal activated carbon powders. In preliminary work for this proposal we could demonstrate that mesoporous and graphitic carbons could also be synthesised more sustainable by vacuum annealing of activated carbons (AC). These AC can stem from sources like wood, coconut, peat or agriculture wastes and would be a more ecological way to produced the desired carbons. To allow a catalyst tuning through the new synthesis method it is envisaged to deduce the influence of the precursor properties, vacuum annealing conditions and graphitization catalysts on the resulting material properties.The project will not stop with development of the novel synthesis method for AC derived mesoporous graphitic carbons, but also employ and optimize these materials for the oxidative dehydrogenation of alcohols to aldehydes. As the use of fossil oil and gas in chemical industry is in future problematic due to the peak oil and greenhouse gas problem, one of the utmost challenges of chemical industry is the transition towards sustainable feedstock. Here future important platform chemicals can be alcohols, as they can be produced sustainable (e.g. ethanol and butanol by fermentation). In this sense obtaining aldehydes from ODH of these alcohols could lead directly to important intermediates for chemical industry. Furthermore, the studied carbon materials shall replace classical dehydrogenation catalysts like noble metals or metal oxides. From the few reports available carbon catalysts could achieve high selectivity or operate at milder process conditions, which makes them an attractive alternative. For the materials optimization in this catalytic application, we want to fundamentally understand coupled alcohol substrate and carbon material influence on the catalytic performance. In this sense, the material synthesis, characterization, catalytic experiments and deducing the catalytic mechanisms will go hand in hand. This gets possible through the German-Chinese collaboration allowing to combine the needed knowledge and methodologies.