The preparation of lactic acid (LA) from the conversion of carbohydrates through chemical ways has received much attention as a way of producing platform chemicals from renewable resources, but harsh reaction conditions were usually employed especially when environmentally benign solvent (water) was used as the reaction media. In this work, polymerizates of imidazole and epichlorohydrin ([IMEP]Cl) have been used as catalysts for the conversion of maltose to LA. Several factors, including the temperature, the NaOH concentration, the [IMEP]Cl loading and the maltose concentration, were found to affect LA yield, and the process was optimized by method of orthogonal experiment. The order of significant factors was found to be maltose concentration > temperature > [IMEP]Cl loading > NaOH concentration. The optimum yield of LA was 48.5%. This route provides a new strategy for carbohydrates conversion to produce fine chemicals.

The PIL which were prepared from imidazole and epichlorohydrin were used as catalysts for the conversion of cellobiose to 5-HMF. Effects of the catalyst anion, solvents, reaction temperature, and recycling time were investigated in detail. The optimum reaction conditions for conversion of cellobiose into 5-HMFcatalysed by [IMEP]BF4 were temperature 180 oC, cellobiose 0.5 g, and [IMEP]BF4 0.25 g in DMSO(30 mL). In this condition the yield of 5-HMF can reach 39.2% for 420min. The good positive correlation between the concentration of glucose and the formation rate of 5-HMF was given, and the conversion of glucose into 5-HMF is the key step of formation of 5-HMF from cellobiose. Moreover, [IMEP]BF4 has well cycle performance in the optimum reaction condition.

Fe-modified ZSM-5 and β zeolites were prepared by adopting liquid ion-exchange method and their catalytic performance was studied in the N2O decomposition reaction. The state of Fe loaded on Fe-zeolites was investigated by means of UV-vis diffuse spectra, infrared spectroscopy, EPR and H2-TPR. The results of IR of hydroxyl stretching and UV-vis investigationSubscript texts indicated that part of the iron-ions was introduced into zeolites at the charge-balancing sites. The results of EPR and H2-TPR investigations showed that the same iron species were loaded on ZSM-5 and β zeolites. However, the results of IR of the perturbed anti-symmetric T-O-T vibrations of iron-ions indicated that different types of ZSM-5 and β zeolites resulted in different distributions of charge-balancing iron cations. The iron-ions could replace Brönsted acid protons at the straight channel wall (α sites), intersection of straight and sinusoidal channels (β sites), and sinusoidal channel wall (γ sites) within the ZSM-5 zeolite. In the case of Fe-β zeolites, iron-ions mainly located in the straight channels. We observed that the catalytic activity of the iron ions located on the α sites of ZSM-5 zeolites was better than those of iron ions located on β and γ sites in N2O direct decomposition, since the former was the most easily reduced from Fe3+to Fe2+in H2. Furthermore, it was found that Fe-β zeolite showed higher catalytic activity than Fe-ZSM-5 zeolite. This difference was attributed to the active sites located almost exclusively in the straight zeolite channels.

Honeycomb shaped monolithic Fe-β zeolite catalyst for N2O decomposition prepared by direct extrusion method was investigated. In this paper, we optimized the parameters of the molding process and studied the decomposition properties of the honeycomb catalysts. Monolithic materials could be extruded successfully only with the plasticity ranging from 0.177 to 0.473. The content of SB powder, nitrate and water was shown to have a significant influence on the mechanical strength of the extruded materials. The monolithic samples were characterized by using XRD. Catalytic performances of various monolithic zeolites with diverse density (49 cells/in.2, 81cells/in.2, 169 cells/in.2) were thereafter studied. As shown from the result, catalyst activity increased significantly with the increase of monolithic catalyst density.