155 research outputs found
Catalysts-Looking Back and Peering Ahead
No full textCitation: Hohn, K. L. (2017). Catalysts-Looking Back and Peering Ahead. Catalysts, 7(2), 1. doi:10.3390/catal7020041I am pleased to report on the latest happenings at Catalysts. It is gratifying to me to look back at where we’ve been and what we’ve accomplished, but also inspiring to peer ahead to how we will grow and improve
Remembering ICC 16
No full textCitation: Hohn, K. (2016). Remembering ICC 16. Catalysts, 6(10), 1. doi:10.3390/catal6100153Every four years, a group of outstanding individuals, the best in their field, come together from all over the world. These individuals have spent years learning their craft, and now they assemble to show what they can do. Such a gathering happened in 2016
Feature papers to celebrate the landmarks of catalysts
No full textCitation: Hohn, K. L. (2015). Feature papers to celebrate the landmarks of catalysts. Catalysts, 5(4), 2018-2023. doi:10.3390/catal5042018Catalysis is a critical scientific field that underpins much of the world’s chemical industry. For example, it is often quoted that catalysis plays a role in 90% of all industrial chemical products. This importance has led to numerous academic journals and specialized conferences on the subject, as practitioners seek outlets to publish their cutting-edge research on catalysis
A New Year of Catalysts
No full textCitation: Hohn, K. L. (2016). A New Year of Catalysts. Catalysts, 6(1), 2. doi:10.3390/catal6010016Excerpt: Welcome to a new year of Catalysts, an international, peer-reviewed open access journal. From time to time, I like to write about the status of the journal: what milestones have been reached, what special issues will be coming out, what conferences we will partner with, etc. As we turn to the New Year, this seems like an opportune time to provide an update on Catalysts
What's in a Number?
No full textCitation: Hohn, K. L. (2015). What's in a Number? Catalysts, 5(3), 1304-1305. doi:10.3390/catal5031304People like to distill complicated phenomenon into easily digestible numbers. Whether it’s a top ten list of the best movies of all time, the shooting percentage of our basketball team’s star, or a student’s score on an exam, we like to quantify phenomenon that is unquantifiable. We like the comfort of a number which we can use as the basis for our decisions. This is an imperfect process, as underlying human behavior can, ultimately, not be boiled down to a single number. But we try anyway
Production of methyl ethyl ketone from biomass using a hybrid biochemical/catalytic approach
No full textThe recent demand for sustainable routes to fuels and chemicals has led to an increased amount of research in conversion of natural resources. A potential approach for conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals is to combine biochemical and chemical processes. This research used microbial fermentation to produce 2,3-butanediol, which was then converted to methyl ethyl ketone by dehydration over a solid acid catalyst. The fermentation process was performed using the bacteria Klebsiella oxytoca (K.O). 2,3-butanediol then dehydrated to form methyl ethyl ketone on a solid acid catalyst, the proton form of ZSM-5, and heat. The goal was to determine the reaction kinetics of 2,3-butanediol dehydration over ZSM-5, and to demonstrate the hybrid biochemical/thermochemical approach for synthesizing chemicals from biomass. It was found that ZSM-5 produced methyl ethyl ketone with high selectivity (greater than 90%), and could convert fermentative 2,3-butanediol to methyl ethyl ketone. The reaction order of 2,3-butanediol dehydration was found to be slightly large than one, and an activation energy of 32.3 kJ/mol was measured
Ethanol fermentation from food processing waste
No full textThis study focuses on the use of restaurant waste for production of ethanol. Food wastes (corn, potatoes, and pasta) were converted to ethanol in a two-step process: a two-part enzymatic digestion of starch using alpha-amylase and glucoamylase and then fermentation of the resulting sugars to ethanol using yeast. Because of the low initial composition of starch in the food waste, low ethanol concentrations were achieved: at best 8 mg/ml ethanol (0.8 % by mass). Ethanol concentration increased with increasing enzyme dosage levels. Calculations were conducted to evaluate whether waste heat from restaurant waste could be used to drive flash vaporization to purify ethanol. If the solution produced by fermenting food waste is flashed at a temperature of
99.7°C, 77% of the ethanol is recovered in a vapor stream with 1.14 mole% ethanol (2.87 mass %). Waste heat could provide over a third of the energy for this vaporization process. If 4 mole% ethanol could be produced in the fermentation step by increasing the initial starch content in the waste solution and improving the fermentation process, then a single flash at 98.9°C will recover nearly 99% of the ethanol, giving a mass concentration of ethanol of 10.3%, which is similar to that achieved in industrial grain fermentation
Acid monolayer functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles as catalysts for carbohydrate hydrolysis
No full textSuperparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles were functionalized with a quasi-monolayer of 11-sulfoundecanoic acid and 10-phosphono-1-decanesulfonic acid ligands to create separable solid acid catalysts. The ligands are bound through carboxylate or phosphonate bonds to the magnetite core. The ligand-core bonding surface is separated by a hydrocarbon linker from an outer surface with exposed sulfonic
acid groups. The more tightly packed monolayer of the phosphonate ligand corresponded to a higher sulfonic acid loading by weight, a reduced agglomeration of particles, a greater tendency to remain suspended in solution in the presence of an external magnetic field, and a higher catalytic activity per sulfonic acid group. The particles were characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), transmission
electron microscopy (TEM), potentiometric titration, diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS), inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), and dynamic light scattering (DLS). In sucrose catalysis reactions, the phosphonic–sulfonic nanoparticles (PSNPs) were seen to be incompletely recovered by an external magnetic field, while the carboxylic–sulfonic nanoparticles (CSNPs) showed a trend of increasing activity over the first four recycle runs. The activity of the acid-functionalized nanoparticles was compared to the traditional solid acid catalyst Amberlyst-15 for the hydrolysis of starch in aqueous solution. Catalytic activity for starch hydrolysis was in the order PSNPs > CSNPs > Amberlyst-15. Monolayer acid functionalization of iron oxides presents a novel strategy for the development of recyclable solid acid catalysts
Brookite, the least known TiO2 photocatalyst, Catalysts
No full textBrookite is the least studied TiO2 photocatalyst due to the difficulties usually
encountered in order to obtain it as a pure phase. In this review, a comprehensive survey of
the different methods available for preparing brookite powders and films is reported.
Attention has been paid both to the most traditional methods, such as hydrothermal
processes at high temperatures and pressures, and to environmentally benign syntheses
using water soluble compounds and water as the solvent. Papers reporting the
photocatalytic activity of pure and brookite-based samples have been reviewed
Sustainability education for sustainable development
No full textThere is a growing interest in sustainability education in many universities. Existing courses are being modified to add sustainability. At K-State, the Natural Resource/Environmental Science Project, DEN 582, is an example; sustainability is an important consideration in many of the recent projects. Certificate programs with significant sustainability content are being proposed and approved. Sustainability Seminar, CHE 670, and other new sustainability courses have been introduced. K-State offers a Research Experiences for Undergraduates summer program. Five core competencies, systems thinking, anticipatory capacities, normative competency, strategic thinking, and interpersonal skills to work effectively on multidisciplinary teams were presented and discussed at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fourth Forum on Sustainability Science Programs. This presentation will provide information on sustainability educational developments at Kansas State University and other universities
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