Abstract
Catalytic synthesis of value-added chemicals from renewable biomass-derived platform chemicals is an important way to reduce current dependence on fossil-fuel resources. The main objective of this study was to synthesize magnetic functionalized porous organic polymers (POPs), gold incorporated POPs and bifunctional gold incorporated POPs acid catalysts and use them for the catalytic upgrade of biomass derived model compounds to valuable chemicals. The high surface area, stable and amorphous nanoporous polytriphenylamine polymer (PPTPA) was synthesized as a POPs based support under a microwave assisted method. The synthesized PPTPA was sulfonated with chlorosulfonic acid to introduce acidic groups on the surface of the material to form SPPTPA acid catalysts which were further incorporated with magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles to form FeSPPTPA catalysts. The neat PPTPA support and SPPTPA materials were incorporated with gold nanoparticles to form AuPPTPA and bifunctional AuSPPTPA nanocatalysts. The morphological characterization showed that the prepared materials showed nanofiber-like, flake-like and nanorods morphologies. The magnetic solid acid catalysts (FeSPPTPA) successfully dehydrated fructose to 5-hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF) as a valuable compound with highest HMF yield of 96.61% and the best catalyst could be reused for 4 consecutive catalytic runs. The magnetic solid acid catalysts (FeSPPTPA) also showed that levulinic acid could be converted to diacids as the products even though levulinic acid could not be fully converted to possible products under the reaction conditions used.
Ph.D. (Chemistry)