Design of Lewis-acid centres in zeolitic matrices for the conversion of renewables.

The catalytic conversion of renewable feedstocks into chemicals is pursued as a means to sustainably fulfil future societal needs. Due to the oxygen-rich nature of bio-derived substrates, isomerisation, transfer-hydrogenation and retro-aldol reactions have emerged as relevant transformations to produce commodity chemicals and polymer building blocks. In this context, porous materials containing Lewis-acid metals (e.

Highly selective Lewis acid sites in desilicated MFI zeolites for dihydroxyacetone isomerization to lactic acid.

Desilication of commercial MFI-type (ZSM-5) zeolites in solutions of alkali metal hydroxides is demonstrated to generate highly selective heterogeneous catalysts for the aqueous-phase isomerization of biobased dihydroxyacetone (DHA) to lactic acid (LA). The best hierarchical ZSM-5 sample attains a LA selectivity exceeding 90 %, which is comparable to that of the state-of-the-art catalyst (i.e.

Direct observation of macropore self-formation in hierarchically structured metal oxides.

The current work presents an unprecedented direct observation of macropore formation in the spontaneous self-assembly process to obtain hierarchical meso/macroporous metal oxides made possible with the help of an unusual titanium alkoxide.