Could you please forward this to
people in your area that would be interested.
Thanks,
Isa
Mbaraka
BIOLOGICAL
ENGINEERING CANDIDATE
Research
Seminar
Monday,
August 28, 2006
8:30 -
9:30 a.m. - ABE 301
"Nanostructured
Catalysts for Conversion
of
Biorenewable Feedstocks”
Abstract --
Bioprocessing of
biorenewable feedstocks will likely require the development of new chemical
processes as well as
biological processes
for economical manufacture of chemicals and/or fuels. However,
biorenewable feedstock
conversion with
heterogeneous catalysts provides new challenges in inorganic catalyst research
and development
relative to the
voluminous historical work with petrochemical feedstocks. These unique
challenges include the need
to selectively
convert highly functionalized molecules and to develop catalytic liquid-solid
interfaces in which the
liquid phase is
commonly aqueous. The implications of these requirements on catalyst
design will be discussed as
motivation for the
utilization of newly synthesized nanostructured materials. These catalyst
structures with high
surface areas and
regular arrays of uniformly sized mesopores hold promise for precise control of
the reaction
domain at the
molecular level. Presented will be results for the application of
acid-functionalized mesoporous
catalysts for the
conversion of lipids. The influence on catalyst performance due to the
control of the pore
diameter size as
well as the modification of the site acidity and hydrophobicity of the reaction
domain will be shown.
Finally, the
potential use of nanostructured catalysts in achieving the elusive goal of
biomimetic catalysts will be discussed.
Thanks,
Becky
Becky
Peer
Administrative
Assistant
Ag.
& Biological Engineering
Phone:
(765) 494-1162
Fax:
(765) 496-1115