Cover Picture: Mechanism of Brønsted Acid‐Catalyzed Glucose Dehydration (ChemSusChem 8/2015)

Abstract

The Front Cover picture presents the DFT‐based microkinetic model for the Brønsted acid‐catalyzed conversion of glucose to 5‐hydroxylmethyl furfural (HMF), levulinic acid, and formic acid. Isotopic tracing coupled with kinetic experiments provides a quantitative method to assess the mechanism and to propose unknown pathways among numerous ones that could be studied using first principles methods. We reveal that glucose dehydrates through a cyclic path, whereas the rate‐limiting step is the first dehydration of protonated glucose and that the majority of glucose is consumed via the HMF intermediate. More details can be found in the Full Paper by Yang et al. on page 1334 (DOI: ).