Lignin is an earth-abundant biopolymer that is grossly underutilized as a source of fuels and value-added chemicals. However, lignin is an intractable heteropolymer, which makes it difficult to deconstruct and upgrade in many chemically selective biomass conversion routes. The development of new catalytic routes to depolymerize this recalcitrant biopolymer is required to more effectively utilize lignin. To that end, our group aims to synthesize and characterize a collection of inorganic and organometallic catalysts to promote atom-economical catalytic lignin depolymerization. These catalysts have been screened against a continuum of model compounds and biomass-derived lignin for their usefulness in the deconstruction of these substrates. In addition, we have coupled our experimental efforts with quantum mechanical calculations to elucidate the mechanisms of catalysts to identify the mechanisms of lignin depolymerization. Detailed synthetic procedures, as well as spectroscopic and crystallographic characterization and DFT calculations will be presented.

Synthesis and characterization of transition metal complexes useful for the catalytic deconstruction of lignin

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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