Conversion of plant biomass to value-added chemicals by activated carbon catalysts

将纤维素转化为葡萄糖是生物炼制中的一个巨大挑战。本工作研究了活性炭对纤维素水解的催化作用，采用不同的活性炭和几种物理化学方法对纤维素的水解进行了研究，结果表明活性炭的催化活性与活性炭上含氧官能团的数量有关。研究结果表明，碳吸附纤维素的机理是碳表面的疏水官能团与纤维素表面的酚、羧酸等含氧基团之间形成氢键，进而与纤维素表面的羟基形成氢键。然后，羧酸攻击糖苷键形成两个糖分子。

Conversion of cellulose to glucose is a grand challenge in biorefineries. In this work, the catalysis of activated carbons was studied for the efficient hydrolysis of cellulose.The hydrolysis of cellulose using various carbons and several physicochemical methods has indicated that the activity correlates with the amount of oxygenated functional groups on carbons. A pretreatment that improves the contact between catalyst and cellulose was developed, and an 88% yield of glucose was achieved under the optimized conditions.A mechanistic study has shown that a carbon adsorbs cellulose by their hydrophobic functionalities, followed by the formation of hydrogen bondings between oxygenated groups such as phenols and carboxylic acids on carbons and hydroxyl groups of cellulose. Then, a carboxylic acid attacks a glycosidic bond to form two sugar molecules.