Publications related to Lignin Hydrogenolysis: Phenolic Monomers from Lignin and Associated Phenolates across Plant Clades

Estrogenic, Genotoxic, and Antibacterial Effects of Chemicals from Cryogenically Milled Tire Tread

Florian Frédéric Vincent Breider, Kristin Schirmer, Benoît Jean Dominique Ferrari, Thibault Béranger Masset

Tire and road wear particles (TRWP) contain complex mixtures of chemicals and release them to the environment,and potential toxic effects of these chemicals still need to be characterized. We used a standardized surrogate for TRWP,cryogenically milled tire ...

2024

Decarbonizing the fertilizers sector: an alternative pathway for urea and nitric acid production

François Maréchal, Daniel Alexander Florez Orrego, Meire Ellen Gorete Ribeiro Domingos

In order to alleviate the environmental impact that nitrogen fertilizers production is responsible for, several efforts have been addressed to incentivize the partial or total decarbonization of the supply chains of ammonia and its derivatives. The decarbo ...

2024

Direct conversion of lignin to functionalized diaryl ethers via oxidative cross-coupling

Paul Joseph Dyson, Mingyang Liu

Efficient valorization of lignin, a sustainable source of functionalized aromatic products, would reduce dependence on fossil-derived feedstocks. Oxidative depolymerization is frequently applied to lignin to generate phenolic mono- mers. However, due to th ...

Nature Research2023

Selecting Suitable Near-Native Lignins for Research

Jeremy Luterbacher

There are several methods to isolate near-native lignins, including milled-wood lignin, enzymatic lignin, cellulolytic enzyme lignin, and enzymatic mild-acidolysis lignin. Which one is the most representative of the native lignin? Herein, near-native ligni ...

Amer Chemical Soc2023

An Overview of Heterogeneous Catalysts Based on Hypercrosslinked Polystyrene for the Synthesis and Transformation of Platform Chemicals Derived from Biomass

Lioubov Kiwi

Platform chemicals, also known as chemical building blocks, are substances that serve as starting materials for the synthesis of various value-added products, which find a wide range of applications. These chemicals are the key ingredients for many fine an ...

MDPI2023

Tuning the reactivity of uranium towards small molecules in multimetallic complexes

Nadir Jori

One of the main goals of organometallic chemistry in the last decades was the activation of small molecule in mild reaction conditions. Even though multiple examples of catalytic cycles able to produce fine chemicals from cheap and abundant sources using t ...

EPFL2023

Integrated production of urea and nitric acid in the pulp industry: techno-economic and environmental analysis of black liquor gasification-based processes

François Maréchal, Shivom Sharma, Daniel Alexander Florez Orrego, Meire Ellen Gorete Ribeiro Domingos

The pursuit of alternative energy sources for the nitrogen fertilizers sector has recently earned renewed interest due to increasing concerns regarding the world dependence on non-renewable energy resources and also motivated by the more stringent environm ...

2022

Process modeling and integration of hydrogen and synthetic natural gas production in a kraft pulp mill via black liquor gasification

François Maréchal, Daniel Alexander Florez Orrego, Meire Ellen Gorete Ribeiro Domingos

The black liquor gasification integrated to chemical plants has shown potential for reducing the process irreversibility and promoting the decarbonization of this industrial sector. In the integrated chemical plants proposed in this work, the purpose is co ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2023

Autocatalysis and CO2: Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) Meets Natural Processes

Paul Joseph Dyson, Martin Hulla, Jorge Gustavo Uranga, Gabriela Gastelu

Autocatalytic reactions were proposed to play a key role at the beginning of life starting from the first reduction of CO2 to formate, acetate and C-1-C-4 hydrocarbons. In carbon capture and utilization (CCU) processes, the same reactions were demonstrated ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag2023

Hydro-processing of biomass using novel metal-organic framework (MOF)/polymer composite catalysts

Vikram Vinayak Karve

Generating value, in the form of functional chemicals, from biomass is a critical need of today. It is expected that replacing petroleum with biomass as the source of many commodity and fine chemicals can lead the transition away from a fossil-fuel based e ...

EPFL2022

Well-Defined Copper-Based Nanocatalysts for Selective Electrochemical Reduction of CO2 to Ethylene and Ethanol

Raffaella Buonsanti, Ludovic Emile Frédy Zaza, Kevin Rossi

The electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) holds the promise to revolutionize the chemical industry by producing value-added chemicals and fuels from CO2 and water while storing renewable energy. However, catalyst design still remains one of the ma ...

2022

Extraction and controlled functionalization of lignin for materials applications

Stefania Bertella

Lignin is a renewable aromatic polymer that due to its abundance and unique chemical structure is a promising candidate to replace aromatic materials that are currently sourced from fossil oil. The same structure of lignin poses however drawbacks for its v ...

EPFL2022

Active sites on copper-based catalysts for electrochemical CO2 reduction selectively to C2+ products

Jie Zhang

Electrochemical CO2 reduction (eCO2RR) towards value-added chemicals, powered by renewable electricity, is a promising technology for storing the intermittent renewable energy in the form of chemical bonds. Among the various products of eCO2RR, multi-carbo ...

EPFL2022

New and improved methods for integrated models of metabolism and gene expression

Pierre Guy Rémy Salvy

The beginning of the 21st century was marked by the advent of disruptive technologies, which ushered an era of groundbreaking advances in fundamental sciences, carried by the great pace at which computational capabilities spread and evolved. But the new ce ...

EPFL2021

Toward waste valorization by converting bioethanol production residues into nanoparticles and nanocomposite films

Muhammad Farooq, Xun Liao

A "waste-valorization" approach was developed to transform recalcitrant hydrolysis lignin (HL) from secondgeneration bioethanol production into multifunctional bio-based products. The hydrolysis lignin (HL) was extracted with aqueous acetone, yielding two ...

ELSEVIER2021

Diformylxylose as a new polar aprotic solvent produced from renewable biomass

Jeremy Luterbacher, Graham Reid Dick, Anastasiia Komarova

Lignin is a promising candidate for the replacement of fossil-based materials, due to its natural abundance and aromatic structure. This same structure poses major challenges to lignin's exploitation for material development. The harsh conditions generally ...

2021

Guidelines for performing lignin-first biorefining

Jeremy Luterbacher, Feng Wang

The valorisation of the plant biopolymer lignin is now recognised as essential to enabling the economic viability of the lignocellulosic biorefining industry. In this context, the "lignin-first" biorefining approach, in which lignin valorisation is conside ...

2021

Acceptorless dehydrogenation and hydrogenation of N- and O-containing compounds on Pd3Au1(111) facets

Paul Joseph Dyson, Zhaofu Fei, Antoine Philippe Van Muyden, Tao Wang, Zhangjun Huang, Xinjiang Cui

Catalytic dehydrogenation and hydrogenation of amines and alcohols are important in the synthesis of fine chemicals. Despite several efficient homogeneous catalysts having been identified, highly active heterogeneous catalysts remain elusive, although they ...

2020

Data-Driven Advancement of Homogeneous Nickel Catalyst Activity for Aryl Ether Cleavage

Anne-Clémence Corminboeuf, Matthew Wodrich, Manuel Cordova, Benjamin André René Meyer, Boodsarin Sawatlon

The increasing urgency to make chemical processes more environmentally friendly while continuing to derive the chemicals required for modern society from renewable resources requires the development of a forthcoming generation of synthetic processes and th ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2020

Production and characterization of stabilized lignin

Masoud Talebi Amiri

Lignocellulosic biomass is a sustainable source of renewable carbon, and it is the most abundant form of terrestrial biomass. The three main constituents of lignocellulosic biomass are cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. The monomers from these biopolyme ...

EPFL2019