Creating solvation environments in heterogeneous catalysts for efficient biomass conversion

Qi Sun (), Sai Wang, Briana Aguila, Xiangju Meng, Shengqian Ma and Feng-Shou Xiao ()
Additional contact information
Qi Sun: Zhejiang University
Sai Wang: Zhejiang University
Briana Aguila: University of South Florida
Xiangju Meng: Zhejiang University
Shengqian Ma: University of South Florida
Feng-Shou Xiao: Zhejiang University

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Chemical transformations are highly sensitive toward changes in the solvation environment and solvents have long been used to control their outcome. Reactions display unique performance in solvents like ionic liquids or DMSO, however, isolating products from them is cumbersome and energy-consuming. Here, we develop promising alternatives by constructing solvent moieties into porous materials, which in turn serve as platforms for introducing catalytic species. Due to the high density of the solvent moieties, these porous solid solvents (PSSs) retain solvation ability, which greatly influences the performance of incorporated active sites via concerted non-covalent substrate–catalyst interactions. As a proof-of-concept, the -SO3H-incorporated PSSs exhibit high yields of fructose to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural in THF, which exceeds the best results reported using readily separable solvents and even rivals those in ionic liquids or DMSO. Given the wide application, our strategy provides a step forward towards sustainable synthesis by eliminating the concerns with separation unfriendly solvents.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05534-5 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-05534-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05534-5

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().