Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) based bio-oil separations

During the pretreatment of lignocellulose to fermentable compounds like D-glucose, to form bio-alcohols and valuable chemicals, a variety of side reactions will form organic acids, phenols and furans. Besides, side products phenolics (such as guaiacols, phenol, catecols, hydroquinone) and furans(such as furfural and furfuryl alcohol) are with wide range of applications. MOFs are a class of microporous crystalline material with permanent porosity and absorption capacity. In recent years, MOFs (metal-organic frameworks) find widespread applications such as gas storage, separation, catalysis, ferroelectric, photoluminescent and nonlinear optics properties. In 2007, Luc etc. found that MIL-47V is able to separate xylene and ethylbenzen in liquid phase, because of the specific interaction between the guest molecules and the pore all of MOFs. After that, most efforts about liquid phase adsorption have been put to investigate the MOFs on fuel upgrading, such as desulfurization, denitrogenation. Recently, a series of zirconium based hydrophobic MOFs, Mil-140, achieved high para-phenolics selectivity in aqueous solution. In this thesis, MOFs will be used for the adsorptive removal of these inhibitory compounds.status: publishe