[FPU2019] Desarrollo de tecnologías catalíticas para procesos sostenibles

The general objective of the investigation is to develop economic and environmentally viable catalytic chemical technologies to transform lignocellulosic agro-residues into valuable renewable monomers for more sustainable plastics.

More specifically, the investigation will be focused in the production of maleic anhydride (MA) from biomass. MA is currently a petrochemical commodity with numerous applicactions in industry, one of them the production of unsaturated resins. MA has a worldwide production of more than 1.6MTon/year and it is obtained by gas phase oxidation of butane or benzene.

Our goal is to develop a new catalytic process to obtain MA from furfural, the latter is a renewable chemical obtained from biomass. This will turn MA into a bio-based product. Consequently the objective of the project addresses important objectives of the Spanish and European policies on Bioeconomy and Circular Economy.

Our previous investigations in the gas phase oxidation of furfural with O2 has given very promising results: VOx/.-Al2O3 catalysts rendered high yield of MA (> 70 %) using reaction mixtures with high oxidation potential (high O2/furfural ratio and temperatures above 300 °C). However catalysts slow but continuously deactivates by deposition of heavy resins and maleates. Although full regeneration is accomplished by burning off these deposits at 500ºC, an industrial application requires susbstantial decrease of the deactivation process. This is the final objective of the Thesis investigation, to find new strategies to cope with deactivation and/or to find new catalysts that are much more stable than those developed so far.

The activities of the investigation will call for (i) the design, preparation and physico-chemical characterisation of catalysts, (ii) the measurement of their catalytic properties, (iii) address the technological and engineering requirements to set up the chemical processes and (iv) the life cycle assessment of the global process.