Biomass is the only current sustainable source of pharmaceuticals, plastics, and biofuels. The European Commission has set a goal that by 2020, 10% of the transportation fuels will be based on biofuels. It is expected that during the next 20 years renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal and biofuels) will increase from 5 to 18% in the global scale. For this purpose, a number of processes have been developed. However, these processes require rigorous conditions, such as high temperature or high pressure and, therefore, are of high cost. Compared to them, photocatalysis could be a good approach since the process can be carried out under ambient conditions and driven by sunlight.1 Thanks to the novel ultrasound-assisted methodology for nanomaterials synthesis (based on TiO2), it was possible to synthesize photocatalytsts with special properties which applied under right reaction conditions were active and very selective (promising selectivity to glucaric and gluconic acids, 70% in total, Scheme 1A) in the photocatalyitc oxidation of 2.8 x 10-3 molL-1 glucose solution at room temperature.2 Interestingly, the incorporation of metals (e.g. Pt, Pd) into the structure of the previous synthesized TiO2 and a post high-temperature-redox treatment of these hybrid materials, allows us to obtain a different and interesting photocatalysts for biohydrogen production from glucose solution (Scheme 1C).3 The whole idea may be described as a photocatalytic selective conversion (either photoselective production of platform molecules or biomass photocatalytic reforming to biohydrogen, depending on the chosen catalysts preparation methodology and the reaction conditions) of organic wastewater at room temperature and represents an environmentally friendly and cost effective method for water purification with parallel production of energy and chemicals.Acknowledgements:  This research was supported by a Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant within the 7th European Community Framework Programme.References [1] Colmenares, J.C. et al., Materials 2 (2009) 2228�2258.[2] Colmenares, J.C. et al., Bioresour. Technol. 102 (2011) 11254-11257.[3] Colmenares, J.C. et al., Catal. Comm. 16 (2011) 1�6.

Photocatalysis and biomass: An effective combination for the conversion of solar energy into chemical energy

244th National Meeting (2012)

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