(7iz) Hydrogeoxygenation of Long-Carbon Oxygenates to Jet and Diesel Fuels: Probing the Reaction Network

The rapidly increasing global demand for energy coupled with large population growth necessitates the extensive research on exploring renewable natural resources such as lignocellulosic biomass for access to molecules and materials for energy applications. As our society is already heavily reliant on conventional sources to produce the chemicals that we need to sustain, we must find methods than enable us to reduce our dependence on conventional forms of energy and materials. Integrating chemical and biological processes of making renewable fuels and utilize renewable sources for making components of energy devices are my major motivation for the research. In order to develop these technologies, it is vital to understand the features of bioresource derived molecules and materials and how these systems can offer solutions to energy and environmental problems.

Research Interests:

As faculty, I plan to leverage my past and recent research experiences in the field of biomass processing, heterogeneous catalysis, biofuels, and porous energy-storage nanomaterials to encounter some of the key challenges and disclose mechanistic understanding of biomass related chemical reactions and charge-storage phenomena using relevant materials and catalysts. My efforts will focus on the design of effective, selective, and sustainable chemical pathways to access new multifunctional materials that contains desired functional components for a cascade chemical process such as oxygen removal from lignocellulosic biopolymers to product liquid fuels. My research will also focus on deriving fibrous materials from lignocellulose by means of novel chemical modification-transformation of biopolymers that would offer significant advantages over conventional polyolefin based processes. This will also involve exploring enzymatic routes to depolymerize lignin and lignocellulose to access composite materials with aromatic moiety. I will focus on developing new methods to utilize structural motifs of metal-organic framework (MOF) materials to access functional materials for ultra-high charge-storage applications. I anticipate close collaborations with theoreticians and other experimental specialists to decipher the true structural and chemical features of functional materials that are capable for desired chemical and physical process. With this information, structural features-application profile relationships can be develop to give further insight to the field.

Research Projects:

1) Hydrodeoxygenation of cellulosic biomass and biomass-derived oxygenates to access jet and diesel fuels

2) Catalytic application of 2D graphenic catalysts

3) Ultrahigh charge-storage application of metal-organic frameworks and related materials.

Research Experience:

Over the course of my graduate studies and subsequent postdoctoral research, we have investigated how molecules and materials plays their role in a desired chemical transformation including synthesis of polymers, depolymerization, and lignocellulosic biomass transformation. Specifically, we focused on understanding how molecules and functional surface based catalysts offer desired reactivity for chemical transformation. Some of the desired catalysts that we have focused are noble metal based (Pd, Pt) catalysts supported by the carbon based and metal oxides. These materials were explored for revealing their potentials for the chemical transformation of sugar-derived molecules. Mechanistic understanding of many of those processes were attempted by means structural characterization of metal-based materials. Lignocellulose hydrolysis, sugar-derived chemical production and functional transformation of sugar derived molecules to fuels were some of the major studies in which we have invested major focus during my postdoctoral research with Vlachos group at the DOE CCEI.

In the past, I was associated with research in the field of design and develop porous materials for catalytic and charge-storage applications including lithium battery and capacitive deionization-based desalination of water. This experience were advanced while working at the CCEI with Vlachos group to design and develop novel graphene materials catalyst for lignocellulose and sugar transformation to liquid fuel precursors. Finally, we performed extensive in situ and ex situ characterization to confirm both that the atomic structure of the applied catalyst matches that of our computational models and that the observed activity enhancement is associated with nanostructural features of the computational models.

Future Direction:

As faculty, I would like to continue further developing strategies for 1) chemical transformation of lignin, 2) cellulose-derived fiber and other materials, 3) hydrodeoxygenation of lignocellulose-derived molecules, 4) porous nanomaterials from framework materials like MOFs and COFs, 5) electrochemical charge-storage applications of porous materials. In particular, I would like to unite the knowledge that I obtained from the postdoctoral research in the area of chemistry of biomass, renewable energy, and applications of porous nanomaterials. I believe that the advanced research in these closely related areas has promising future prospects in terms of understanding the reaction networks of biomass transformation, exploring new renewable energy resources, making materials from bioresources and beyond.

Besides research in field of biomass, my interests include flows through porous materials for enzyme immobilization and advancing them for enzyme dominated biomass conversions, modeling biorefinery chemical processes, financial optimization and entrepreneurship. My overall philosophy is to invent new chemical strategies and optimize them for realistic results based on actual physical data. Therefore, in the future, I foresee myself collaborating closely with experimentalists with having an experimental component in my own laboratory.

Teaching Interests:

My preference would be to teach chemical kinetics and reaction processes because it closely aligns with my research postdoctoral research experience. During my doctoral research, I was associated as teaching assistant (TA) (~30 students) for the course of principals of inorganic chemistry at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. I was responsible for preparing course materials, managing personnel, and lecturing a 1/3 of the classes. Additionally, I am open to developing a graduate level elective course describing the fundamentals of molecular design, which would be of particular interest to undergraduate and graduate students. Lastly, I have much experience as a mentor to both undergraduate and graduate students during my doctoral and postdoctoral research for providing training to the students in laboratory courses and experimental skills.

I wish to teach courses in the following areas: renewable energy sources (PV systems, components and design, renewable energy, solar source science, biomass characterization and upgradation.

Funding:

1) Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation, University of Delaware, 2) U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award Number DE-SC0001004.

Selected Publications:

6. Hydrodeoxygenation of Furylmethane Oxygenates to Jet and Diesel Ranged Fuels: Probing the Reaction Network with Supported Palladium Catalyst and Hafnium Triflet Promoter

Dutta, S.; Saha, B. ACS Catal. 2017, 7, 5491-5499. DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.7b09864 (IF 10.6)

5. Solventless C-C Coupling of Low Carbon Furanics to High Carbon Fuel Precursors Using an Improved Graphene Oxide Carbocatalyst

Dutta, S.; Bohre, A.; Zheng, W.; Jenness G. R.; Núñez, M.; Saha, B.; Vlachos, D. ACS Catal. 2017, 7, 3905-3915. DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.6b03113 (IF 10.6)

4. 3D Network of Cellulose-Based Energy Storage Devices and Related Emerging Applications

Dutta, S.; Kim, J.; Ide, Y.; Kim, J.-H.; Hossain, M.S.A.; Bando, Y.; Yamauchi, Y.; Wu, C.-W. Mater. Horizon. 2017, 4, 522-545. DOI: 10.1039/c6mh00500d (Front Cover Page) (IF 10.70)

3. Strategies for Improving the Functionality of Zeolitic Imidazolate Frameworks: Tailoring Nanoarchitectures for Functional Applications

Kaneti, Y. V.^{^}; Dutta, S.^{^}; Hossain, M. S. A.; Shiddiky, M. J. A.; Tung, K.-L.; Shieh, F. K.; Tsung, C.-K.; Wu, K. C.-W.; Yamauchi, Y. Adv. Mater. 2017, DOI: 10.1002/adma.201700213 (^{^}equal contribution of first two authors) (IF 19.0)

2. Cellulose Framework Directed Construction of Hierarchically Porous Carbons Offering High-Performance Capacitive Deionization of Brackish Water

Dutta, S.; Huang, S.-Y.; Chen, C.; Hou, C.-H.; Wu, K. C. W. ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2016, 4, 1885-1893. DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.5b01587 (IF 5.95)

1. Hierarchically Porous Carbon Derived from Polymers and Biomass: Effect of Interconnected Pores on Energy Applications

Dutta, S.*; Bhaumik, A.*; Wu, K. C.-W.* Energy Environ. Sci. 2014, 7, 3574-3592. DOI: 10.1039/C4EE01075B (Inside front cover) (Inside Front Cover Page) (Total Citations: 250) (IF 29.51)

Contact Information:

Dr. Saikat Dutta

355 ISE Lab,

221 Academy Street,

University of Delaware,

Newark, DE 19716

Ph. 205 886 9531

Email: saikat@udel.edu