Advances in Biofuels and Renewable Feedstocks Technologies in Eastern Kentucky: Study 4: (Sharits) Novel Catalysts and Solvents for Biomass Processing

Recently there has been a significant push for the use of biofuels over traditional fossil fuels in hopes of developing a dependable and environmentally friendly energy source. Ionic liquids have shown promise as solvents for the dissolution of cellulose and lignin and therefore have the potential to assist catalysts as they breakdown these biomass components. Combining the ability of ionic liquid solvents to dissolve lignin with the reactivity of metalloporphyrins could overcome many challenges in the full utilization of biomass to biofuels and valuable commodity chemicals. To this end, we have studied the use of metalloporphyrins in ionic liquids for the dissolution and oxidation of lignin. In this study lignin model compounds were oxidized via metalloporphyrins, specifically Fe(III)meso-tetra(4- sulfonatophenyl)porphine chloride and Fe(III)meso-tetra(4-carboxyphenyl)porphine chloride, and were analyzed using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with a UV-Visible detector and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)