Chemoenzymatic dynamic kinetic resolution (DKR) of rac-1-phenyl ethanol into R-1-phenylethanol acetate was investigated with emphasis on the minimization of side reactions. The organometallic hydrogen transfer (racemization) catalyst was varied, and this was observed to alter the rate and extent of oxidation of the alcohol to form ketone side products. The performance of highly active catalyst ...

The industrial practice used to produce furfural is the dehydration of pentoses, which is carried out using highly corrosive and contaminating mineral acid catalysts. Because of the ecological and toxicological threats of this process and the complexity of product separation associated with these substances, the development of new acid solid catalysts has expanded in recent years. The present w...

Tandem "Z-scheme" approaches to solar-to-chemical production afford the ability to independently develop and optimize reductive photocatalysts for CO2 reduction to multicarbon compounds and oxidative photocatalysts for O2 evolution. To connect the two redox processes, molecular redox shuttles, reminiscent of biological electron transfer, offer an additional level of facile chemical tunability t...

Selective heating of microwave-absorbing solid catalysts in a heterogeneous medium may affect a chemical reaction; such selectivity cannot be achieved by conventional oil-bath or steam heating methods. Moreover, microwave methods are often misunderstood with respect to equipment and temperature measurements, so that additional experimentation is necessary. In this regard, the present study inte...

An apparatus designed for repetitive sampling and characterization of evolved gas mixtures generated during thermal analysis is described. The apparatus combines fast temperature ramp gas chromatography separations with mass spectrometric detection to selectively monitor volatile mixture component concentration changes as a function of sample temperature. The apparatus was tested by using it to...

Hydrometallurgical recovery of nano-palladium (Pd) from spent Pd/Al2O3 catalyst has been investigated. The Pd content in the spent catalyst sample was assayed to be 0.42% while the remainder was mainly aluminum oxide. Mixture of HCl and AlCl3 was studied as leaching agent for the sample. The Pd was deposited with formic acid. Different parameters affecting leaching and deposition processes such...