Sustainable production of benzene from lignin.
Nat Commun
; 12(1): 4534, 2021 07 26.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34312395
ABSTRACT
Benzene is a widely used commodity chemical, which is currently produced from fossil resources. Lignin, a waste from lignocellulosic biomass industry, is the most abundant renewable source of benzene ring in nature. Efficient production of benzene from lignin, which requires total transformation of Csp2-Csp3/Csp2-O into C-H bonds without side hydrogenation, is of great importance, but has not been realized. Here, we report that high-silica HY zeolite supported RuW alloy catalyst enables in situ refining of lignin, exclusively to benzene via coupling Bronsted acid catalyzed transformation of the Csp2-Csp3 bonds on the local structure of lignin molecule and RuW catalyzed hydrogenolysis of the Csp2-O bonds using the locally abstracted hydrogen from lignin molecule, affording a benzene yield of 18.8% on lignin weight basis in water system. The reaction mechanism is elucidated in detail by combination of control experiments and density functional theory calculations. The high-performance protocol can be readily scaled up to produce 8.5 g of benzene product from 50.0 g lignin without any saturation byproducts. This work opens the way to produce benzene using lignin as the feedstock efficiently.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Benzene
/
Water
/
Zeolites
/
Hydrogen
/
Lignin
Language:
En
Journal:
Nat Commun
Journal subject:
BIOLOGIA
/
CIENCIA
Year:
2021
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
China