(102e) Composite Hollow Fiber Microfluidic Catalytic Reactors for Direct Conversion of Glucose to 5?HMF

The laboratory-scale continuous-flow processes have attracted a great deal of interest in view of the significance of economic and environmentally sustainable production of pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, and agrochemicals, as well as upgrading of biomass feedstocks.^1,2 The immobilization of homogeneous catalysts such as palladium, ruthenium, and nickel for cooperative interactions on the surface of solid supports such as porous oxides and polymers offers a powerful catalytic system that exploits and enhances the advantages of both nanocatalysis and flow chemistry.^1-3 On the other hand, direct conversion of glucose to 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF) is an important step in upgrading biomass to value-added chemicals and fuels.⁴ In this work, the highly hydrophilic and solvent-stable composite hollow fibers were created by crosslinking of porous polyamide-imide (PAI) fibers with 3-aminopropyl trimethoxy silane (APS). The obtained hollow fibers consist of bifunctional groups in the fiber wall that make them bifunctional catalysts for cooperative interactions (i.e., acid-base catalysis) were used as microfluidic reactors for continuous-flow process. Based on the optimized conditions for glucose conversion, we identified a robust process window to produce composite hollow fiber microfluidic reactors for sustainable carbohydrate dehydration reaction in flow.

References:

(1) He, Y.; Jawad, A.; Li, X.; Atanga, M.; Rezaei, F.; Rownaghi, A. A. Direct Aldol and Nitroaldol Condensation in an Aminosilane-Grafted Si/Zr/Ti Composite Hollow Fiber as a Heterogeneous Catalyst and Continuous-Flow Reactor. J. Catal. 2016, 341, 149–159.

(2) He, Y.; Rezaei, F.; Kapila, S.; Rownaghi, A. A. Engineering Porous Polymer Hollow Fiber Microfluidic Reactors for Sustainable C-H Functionalization. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2017, 9 (19), 16288–16295.

(3) Jawad, A.; Rezaei, F.; Rownaghi, A. A. Porous Polymeric Hollow Fibers as Bifunctional Catalysts for CO 2 Conversion to Cyclic Carbonates. J. CO2 Util. 2017, 21 (September), 589–596.

(4) Deshpande, N.; Pattanaik, L.; Whitaker, M. R.; Yang, C. T.; Lin, L. C.; Brunelli, N. A. Selectively Converting Glucose to Fructose Using Immobilized Tertiary Amines. J. Catal. 2017, 353, 205–210.