Room temperature synthesis of 3D-nanocrystalline graphitic carbon from biomass-derived sugars, alcohols, and polyphenolic compounds.

Nanocrystalline carbon materials exhibit promising potential for sustainable and high-performance applications in electronics, energy storage, and environmental technologies. While sugars are abundant and renewable, converting them to graphitic carbon usually requires high temperature treatment. Here, we present a groundbreaking approach for synthesizing nanocrystalline carbon from readily available sugars such as glucose, fructose, and sucrose at ambient pressure and temperature.

Elucidation of the Catalytic Pathway for the Direct Conversion of Furfuryl Alcohol into γ-Valerolactone over AlO-SiO Catalysts.

The one-pot conversion of furfuryl alcohol (FA) into GVL was investigated over the sol-gel-synthesized AlO-SiO (AlSi) catalysts with various AlO loadings (0.2-10 wt %) and commercial zeolites including MFI-1, H-ZSM5, H-beta, and HY-15 in a batch reactor under mild reaction conditions (130 °C, 1 bar N, and 15-120 min). The reaction pathways depend largely on the acid properties of the catalysts, especially the types of Bronsted (B) and Lewis (L) acid sites.

Effects of TiO structure and Co addition as a second metal on Ru-based catalysts supported on TiO for selective hydrogenation of furfural to FA.

The TiO supported Ru-based catalysts were prepared with 1.5 wt% Ru and 0-0.8 wt% Co on various TiO (anatase, rutile, P-25, and sol-gel TiO) and studied in the liquid-phase selective hydrogenation of furfural to furfuryl alcohol (FA) under mild conditions (50 °C and 2 MPa H).