Ruthenium porphyrin complexes as catalysts for the hydrodeoxygenation of sugar derived substrates to polymer precursors.

糖和它们的衍生物可以直接从甜菜、甘蔗玉米淀粉或其它谷物获得，或者更优选地用于非食品应用，通过消化非食品生物质如稻草、玉米秸秆、木屑、树皮、草，这种生物质可从加拿大的农业和林业部门广泛获得，原则上可用作发展的可再生碳原料。作为一个真正可持续发展的化工行业，我们为塑料、涂料、油漆、树脂、化妆品和药品的生产提供燃料、溶剂和基本化学品。 然而，从化学家的角度来看，这些糖衍生物与目前定义我们的技术和文明的化石碳原料（天然气、原油和煤）具有非常不同的性质。因此，它们需要经历大量的化学转化，以便可用作例如，溶剂或聚合物结构单元。特别地，糖衍生物的氧含量太高，并且它们的总体反应性不可控，使得它们不能被整合到（石油）化学工业的现有生产流中。 为了应对这一挑战，我们正在开发新的工艺，通过一种称为“加氢脱氧”的反应来降低这些分子的氧含量，该反应通过与氢气反应来去除氧原子，而氢气又可以通过使用风能和太阳能产生的可再生电力电解水来获得。这可以将生物质转化为碳进料，其与从原油精炼中获得的碳进料有效地相同，但最终源自当地生长的植物材料。这种加氢脱氧方法的实现需要使用催化剂，即，人造金属基化合物，可以实现，加速和指导所需的化学转化类型。因此，圭尔夫大学Schlaf研究小组的重点是合理设计、测试和评估此类催化剂以及整个技术过程的开发。

Sugars and their derivatives can be obtained either directly from sugar beets, sugar cane corn starch or other grain or - much preferably for non-food application - by the digestion of non-food biomass such as straws, corn stover, wood chips, barks, grasses, etc. This biomass is widely available from Canada's agriculture and forestry sectors and could in principle be used as the renewable carbon feed stock for the development of a truly sustainable chemical industry supplying fuel as well as solvents and basic chemicals for the manufacture of plastics, coatings, paints, resins, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. From a chemist's perspective these sugar derivatives have however very different properties than the fossil carbon feeds (natural gas crude oil and coal) that presently define our technology and civilization. They therefore need to go undergo substantial chemical transformations in order to be usable as e.g., solvents or polymer building blocks. In particular, the oxygen content of the sugar derivatives is too high and their overall reactivity to uncontrollable for them to be integrated into the existing production streams of the (petro-) chemical industry. In order to address this challenge, we are developing new processes that can lower the oxygen content of these molecules by a reaction called "hydrodeoxygenation" that removes oxygen atoms as water by reaction with hydrogen gas, which in turn can be obtained by electrolysis of water using renewable electricity generated from Wind and Solar. This can convert the biomass to a carbon feed that is effectively identical to that obtained from the refining of crude oil, but ultimately originates from locally grown plant material. The realization of such hydrodeoxygenation processes requires the use of catalysts, i.e., man-made metal-based compounds that can enable, accelerate and direct the type of chemical transformation required. The focus of the Schlaf Research Group at the University of Guelph is therefore on the rational design, testing and evaluation of such catalysts and the development over the overall technical process.