Nature Communications (Mar 2019)

Effects of chloride ions in acid-catalyzed biomass dehydration reactions in polar aprotic solvents

  • Max A. Mellmer,
  • Chotitath Sanpitakseree,
  • Benginur Demir,
  • Kaiwen Ma,
  • William A. Elliott,
  • Peng Bai,
  • Robert L. Johnson,
  • Theodore W. Walker,
  • Brent H. Shanks,
  • Robert M. Rioux,
  • Matthew Neurock,
  • James A. Dumesic

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09090-4
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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Despite the potential advantages of using polar aprotic solvents for biomass upgrading reactions, fundamental understanding of these solvation effects is limited at present. Here, the authors show that further increases in catalyst performance in polar aprotic solvents can be achieved through the addition of inorganic salts.