Considering energy shortage, large molecules in corn cob and easy separation of solid catalysts, nano oxides are used to transform corn cob into useful chemicals. Because of the microcrystals, nano oxides offer enough accessible sites for cellulose, hemicellulose and monosaccharide from corn cob hydrolysis and oxidant. Chemical conversion of corn cob to organic acids is investigated over nano ceria, alumina, titania and zirconia under various atmospheres. Liquid products are mainly formic and acetic acids. A small amount of other compounds, such as D-xylose,D-glucose, arabinose and xylitol are also detected simultaneously. The yield of organic acids reaches 25%–29% over the nano oxide of ceria,zirconia and alumina with 3 h reaction time under 453 K and 1.2 MPa O2. The unique and fast conversion of corn cob is directly approached over the nano oxides. The results are comparative to those of biofermentation and offer an alternative method in chemically catalytic conversion of corn cob to useful chemicals in a one-pot chemical process.
To study the effect of adjacent hydroxyl to the active sites, several acid catalysts, i.e. substituted benzoic acids with adjacent carboxyl are employed in the fructose dehydration to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural(HMF).Experimental results reveal that Br?nsted acid sites with adjacent carboxyl present higher catalytic ability than isolated ones. Computational results suggest that the adjacent sites lead to co-interaction on fructose, corresponding more stable transition state and faster HMF formation rate. Based on the enhancement from the adjacent sites, a novel ordered mesoporous carbon(OMC) full of carboxyls in surface is prepared and turns out to be an effective solid catalyst for HMF production from fructose derived from biomass.
