Novel techniques for converting lignocellulosic biomass to chemical feedstocks are necessary to reduce our carbon footprint. A challenge with the conversion of biomass is its high functionality, as we aim towards selective hydrogenolysis to maintain aromaticity. We have previously reported the conversion of wood and organosolv lignin to liquid using a copper doped porous metal oxide (CuPMO) catalyst in supercritical methanol (sc-MeOH) without the production of char. Further studies on optimizing the catalyst composition reveal different metal dopants affect the selectivity towards various products. The hydrogenation of model compounds and depolymerization of wood and organosolv lignin will be discussed in a holistic and analytical approach.These studies are supported by the Center for the Sustainable Use of Renewable Feedstocks (CenSURF), a National Science Foundation CCI (CHE-1240194) and the UCSB Partnership for International Research and Education in Electron Chemistry and Catalysis Interfaces (PIRE-ECCI), a National Science Foundation grant (OISE-0968399)

Tuning the reductive disassembly of lignocellulosic biomass and model compounds using doped porous metal oxides

248th National Meeting (2014)

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