CATALYTIC TRANSFORMATION OF BIO-DERIVED PLATFORM MOLECULES

人类享受了工业革命的好处，并以石油为基础建立了技术先进的文明。然而，它现在开始意识到，化石燃料不会永远持续下去。为了应对资源枯竭和气候破坏的挑战，需要从依赖化石燃料转向可再生资源，并将化学工业转型为可持续进程。大自然每年通过光合作用产生1700亿公吨的生物质。令人惊讶的是，只有百分之几被人类用于食物和非食物目的。这种生产的规模足以供应目前化学工业所需的几乎所有原料。因此，生物质化合物是最丰富的可再生资源，它们目前被视为未来绿色化学的原料。与从原油中生产燃料和化学品的炼油厂直接类似，生物炼油厂是一种从生物质中生产多种产品的设施，包括燃料、电力和散装或精细化学品。尽管催化被认为是生物质转化的关键使能技术，但其在生物精炼厂中的应用仍然有限。更重要的是，一些用于生物质转化的催化剂是基于专门为石油炼制而开发的催化剂技术。石油原料基本上是疏水的，与生物质亲水、高氧含量的原料形成鲜明对比。因此，迫切需要新的催化工艺和专门定制的催化剂。这为120亿英镑的全球催化剂市场提供了一个独特的机会。这一挑战的复杂性不可能由单个人来解决，因为创新需要跨学科的研究，将不同学科的方法、技能和优势结合起来。根据这一获胜战略，我们打算通过建立团队成员的不同专业知识，包括催化化学，合成有机化学，微反应器技术，系统工程，原位光谱，在催化过程开发方法上带来相当大的变化。这种方法将确保对生物质转化过程有一定程度的了解，从而能够快速评估新的催化剂和催化过程。本研究项目的一个独特之处在于，我们将在实验和理论研究的密切互动的基础上开发快速反应分析方法。

Humanity has enjoyed the benefits of the industrial revolution and has built a technologically sophisticated civilization based on oil. However, it is now waking up to the reality that the fossil fuels are not going to last forever. A paradigm shift, from reliance on fossil fuels to renewable resources, and a chemical industry transition to sustainable processes are needed to meet the challenges of resource depletion and climate disruption. Nature produces a vast amount of 170 billion metric tons of biomass per year by photosynthesis. Surprisingly, only a few percent is used by humans for food and non-food purposes. The size of this production is sufficient to supply virtually all of the raw materials now required for the chemical industry. Thus, biomass compounds are the most abundant renewable resources available, and they are currently viewed as a feedstock for the green chemistry of the future. In direct analogy to a petroleum refinery, which produces fuels and chemicals from crude oil, a biorefinery is a facility that produces multiple products, including fuel, power, and bulk or fine chemicals, from biomass. Even though catalysis is regarded as a key enabling technology for biomass conversion, its deployment in biorefineries is still limited. More importantly, several of the catalysts used for biomass conversion are based on catalyst technology developed specifically for petroleum refining. Petroleum feedstocks are basically hydrophobic, in stark contrast to biomass hydrophilic, high oxygen content feedstocks. Hence, new catalytic processes are urgently needed with specifically tailored catalysts. This presents a unique opportunity which is yet to be exploited by the £12 Billion global catalyst market. The complexity of the challenge cannot be met by single individuals, because innovation requires interdisciplinary research that integrates methods, skills and strengths of different disciplines. In line with this winning strategy, we intend to bring about a sizable step change in catalytic process development methodology by building on the diverse expertise of the team members, which includes catalytic chemistry, synthetic organic chemistry, microreactor technology, systems engineering, in situ spectroscopy. This approach will ensure a level of understanding of biomass conversion processes that would enable the rapid evaluation of novel catalyst and catalytic processes. One unique feature of this research project is that we will develop rapid reaction profiling methodologies based on close interaction of experimental and theoretical investigations.