Biomass represents a sustainable platform for the production of liquid fuels and valuable chemicals through deoxygenation of biomass-derived polyols. A promising route toward this goal is catalytic deoxydehydration of vicinal diols employing rhenium based catalysts. In this paper, we report on methyltrioxorhenium (MTO) as the catalyst and a sacrificial alcohol as the reducing agent. A thorough kinetic and mechanistic study has been carried out, using hydrobenzoin as the substrate, in order to elucidate the reaction pathway and nature of the active catalyst. Based on results from kinetic experiments using MTO, and data from a variety of oxorhenium species, the reaction is believed to proceed first with the reduction of MTO by the sacrificial alcohol, followed by the coordination of the diol, leading to extrusion of alkene and regeneration of the catalyst. Our ultimate goal is to apply this reaction to biomass derived compounds to develop new methods for making chemicals from biorenewables.

Mechanistic study of MTO-catalyzed deoxygenation of diols to alkenes

244th National Meeting (2012)

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