(596e) Effects of Functional Groups in Molecular Imprinted Silica On Adsorption of Sugars From Cellulosic Biomass

In cellulose based biofuel production, the hydrolyzed products of cellulosic biomass (e.g glucose, xylose and cellobiose) are known to inhibit the enzymatic saccharification (cellulose depolymerisation) process. In order to obtain higher sugar yields and consequently ethanol yields, a means to separate out some of the inhibition products will help drive the enzymatic reaction forward. Here, molecular imprinting is used to create recognition sites by using surfactants derived from the target molecule to be separated as a template. Sugar based surfactants (e.g. n-octyl-ß-D-glucopyranoside) are used in addition to a co-template (CTAB) to obtain nanostructured molecular imprinted (NMI) silica in a sol-gel procedure utilizing two synthesis methods: precipitation and nanocasting. After surfactant extraction the silica materials are hypothesized to possess sites that can recognize specific sugar molecules. Unfortunately, isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) analyses of the adsorption of sugars onto the NMI-silica materials show low binding energies. However, molecular imprinted materials with incorporated functional groups (e.g. amines) should possess sites with favorable chemical interactions with target molecules in addition to size and shape selectivity. This paper will discuss the properties of functionalized NMI-silica materials and the thermodynamics (analyzed using ITC) of sugar binding in comparison to that of NMI-silica.