Wang Guozhong, associate researcher Chen Chun and their collaborators of Solid State Institute of Chinese Academy of sciences have made new progress in biomass catalytic conversion

Recently, researcher Wang Guozhong, associate researcher Chen Chun and their collaborators of the Institute of solid state physics of the Chinese Academy of sciences have made new progress in the catalytic conversion of biomass The relevant research results were published in the international famous journal small (DOI: 10.1002 / small 201801953) as the first illustration in the internal volume The crisis of fossil energy is becoming more and more serious It is urgent to develop green renewable energy As a kind of renewable resource with abundant reserves, biomass has become the "pet" to replace fossil energy Biomass has a high oxygen content and can not directly replace fossil fuel In the chemical industry, hydrodeoxygenation (selective hydrogenation) is recognized as the most effective way to improve the quality of biomass fuel and obtain high value-added chemicals Vanillin (3-methoxy-4-hydroxybenzaldehyde) is an important aromatic monomer in lignin The conversion of vanillin into 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (MMP), a high value-added chemical with lower oxygen content, has attracted the interest of many researchers Researchers have carried out a series of research work on selective hydrogenation of vanillin At present, the active components of hydrogenation catalyst still depend on precious metals (PD, Pt, Au, Ru, etc.), because of its low reserves and high cost, its large-scale application is seriously restricted, so the preparation of high-efficiency, stable and selective non precious metal catalysts has become a hot spot of current research A highly dispersed copper based catalyst was prepared by one-step carbothermal reduction method The catalyst consists of copper nanoparticles with a diameter of 20-30 nm embedded in the carbon matrix Based on the study of the relationship between the structure and activity of copper-based catalysts under different mass fraction of copper and carbothermal temperature, it is found that the catalysts prepared under the conditions of 15% mass fraction of copper and 600 ℃ carbothermal reduction temperature have the best catalytic activity and selectivity in the process of water-phase hydrogenation or transfer hydrogenation Highly dispersed copper nanoparticles are the active center of the catalytic reaction The results showed that under the conditions of 120 ℃ and 2.0 MPa H 2, the conversion of vanillin to MMP was 99.9% and the selectivity was 93.2%, and under the conditions of 180 ℃ and 2.0 MPa N 2, the conversion and selectivity of vanillin to MMP were 99.8% and 99.1%, respectively Excellent stability The results show that the preparation method is simple, green and easy to enlarge, which lays a foundation for the conversion of biomass resources into bio oil and chemical products at low cost This work is supported by the equipment development project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.