(544ho) Multivariate Analysis of Biomass Conversion Over Ruthenium Catalyst

Ruthenium has been proved as a good catalyst in biomass conversion^1,2, especially for cellulose hydrogenation^3,4. However, studies of such reactions are extremely time-consuming due to numerous side reactions and complexity of interactions among reaction parameters. In this work, we introduced multivariate analysis method for the study of cellulose hydrogenation. The effect of temperature, hydrogen pressure, catalyst amount and ruthenium loading were comprehensively explored based on a response surface design (RSD). Among all the 26 hydrogenation reactions, the highest sorbitol yield of 71.9% was obtained. The reaction data was then used to produce a regression model which showed strong statistical significance and high accuracy. Though this model, we studied the effectiveness of all the reaction parameters. It was found that ruthenium loading and temperature were the two main driving forces for sorbitol yield. High sorbitol yield could only be obtained while ruthenium loading and temperature were well tuned. The synergistic effects among reaction parameters were well presented with the help of contour plots and surface plots generated from the model. Lastly, a prediction formula according to the reaction data was constructed to predict the sorbitol yield under other reaction conditions.

References

1. Negoi, K. Triantafyllidis, V.I. Parvulescu, S.M. Coman, The hydrolytic hydrogenation of cellulose to sorbitol over M (Ru, Ir, Pd, Rh)-BEA-zeolite catalysts, Catalysis Today, 2014, 223, 122-128.
2. Gallezot, N. Nicolaus, G. Flèche, P. Fuertes, A. Perrard, Glucose Hydrogenation on Ruthenium Catalysts in a Trickle-Bed Reactor, Journal of Catalysis, 1998, 180, 51-55.
3. Luo, S. Wang, H. Liu, Cellulose conversion into polyols catalyzed by reversibly formed acids and supported ruthenium clusters in hot water, Angew Chem Int Ed Engl, 2007, 46, 7636-7639.
4. Deng, X. Tan, W. Fang, Q. Zhang, Y. Wang, Conversion of Cellulose into Sorbitol over Carbon Nanotube-Supported Ruthenium Catalyst, Catalysis Letters, 2009, 133, 167-174.

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledged the financial support from the Johnson Matthey Public Limited Company.