Advanced biofuels have to date failed to compete with their petrochemical equivalents. Herein, we explore alternative, emerging opportunities in commodity chemical markets by presenting a novel bio-based approach for the production of maleic anhydride.

Small pore zeolites were evaluated as catalysts in the dehydration of xylose and biomass to furfural in a monophasic system of 90/10 γ-valerolactone (GVL)/water. Although the pore sizes were significantly smaller than the kinetic diameter of the sugars, furfural yields on the commercial SAPO-34 catalyst were 40% from xylose and 31% from switchgrass (considering total glucose and xylose moles). Furfural degradation with time was minimal. The SAPO-34 catalyst was recycled multiple times with only a 5% drop in furfural yield and no significant leaching of acid sites occurred. To our knowledge, this is the first time that real biomass has been converted with moderate yields to furfural using small pore zeolites.

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This work describes the design and implementation of an automated device for catalytic materials testing by direct modifications to a gas chromatograph (GC). The setup can be operated as a plug-flow isothermal reactor and enables the control of relevant parameters such as reaction temperature and reactant partial pressures directly from the GC. High-quality kinetic data (including reaction rates, product distributions, and activation barriers) can be obtained at almost one-tenth of the fabrication cost of analogous commercial setups. With these key benefits including automation, low cost, and limited experimental equipment instrumentation, this implementation is intended as a high-throughput catalyst screening reactor that can be readily utilized by materials synthesis researchers to assess the catalytic properties of their synthesized structures in vapor-phase chemistries.