(196g) Hydrothermally Stable Porous Titania-Based Catalysts for Selective Conversion of Biomass to Chemicals

Various technological challenges have stifled the rapid commercialization of the integrated biorefinery despite its promise for deriving liquid fuels and high-value chemicals from renewable cellulosic feedstocks. While catalytic routes are attractive, many conventional metal-oxide supported catalysts tend to be unstable and ineffective under the hydrothermal conditions and in the presence of the high-functionality components of biorefinery streams. We will describe our work aimed at the rational design of hydrothermally stable, hierarchically porous, multifunctional titania-based catalysts suitable for downstream conversion of sugary biomass derivatives. We employ a nanotemplating approach in which pre-formed sacrificial inorganic structures (i.e., colloidal crystals and/or carbon replica structures bearing pore bodies tunable with near nanometer resolution) serve as templates for titania replication. The hard inorganic templates help resist titania pore collapse upon calcination-induced structural coarsening, and the decoupling of template organization and replication allows for precise and versatile pore engineering. Incorporation of catalytic (e.g., gold nanoparticles) and organic surface functionality (e.g., ether/acid) into the porous titania replicas is aimed at tailoring reactivity for tandem dehydration-oxidation chemistries. This talk will focus on both materials synthesis, characterization, and catalytic testing, the latter employing the test bed conversion of sugars to high-value building block chemicals like hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and 2,5-furan dimethylcarboxylate (FDMC).