About This Project

Biomass is organic matter that comes from plants or animal waste (leaves, cooking oil, sugar, etc.) that can be converted into biofuels by different chemical processes. The problem is that more effective catalysts are needed to develop new technologies that can compete with the oil driven market of petroleum products. I propose to synthesize molybdenum based nanoparticles and use them as a catalyst for biomass conversion.

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What is the context of this research?

Many reactions that convert biomass require the use of heterogeneous catalysts (catalysts that are in a different phase to that of the reactants). Currently, the catalysts normally used are not very active, lack stability and have poor selectivity towards the targeted reactions. This is where nano-catalysts come into play since they exhibit enhanced catalytic properties; the issue is that many of the known methods of synthesis have the disadvantage of using high temperatures, organic solvents, high pressures and complicated setups in order to achieve nano sizes of the desired materials. In addition, the control over the morphology of the final structure is sometimes hard to achieve which has a direct impact on catalytic behavior.

What is the significance of this project?

My research will try to form nanoparticles by synthesizing nanosized molybdenum precursors, converting them into the active phase, and encapsulating them to prevent growth. This method uses inexpensive precursor materials and lower temperatures, and could be extended to the preparation of nanocatalysts of many other active phases. The cost of production of catalysts required to push emerging technologies into the market will be reduced. The key factor is to have a catalyst with an enhanced activity, great selectivity and long-term stability as to be cost-effective that will considerably reduce energy input and environmental impact.

What are the goals of the project?

My goal is the successful synthesis of a nanosized catalyst of the desired active phase (molybdenum oxide) testing different carbohydrates until a suitable candidate is chosen based on preliminary results.

3 carbohydrates will be tested under this project. Different conditions will be explored (temperature, water content) and concentrations (of both, the carbohydrate and the molybdenum oxide) until the formulation is fine tuned as to guarantee a small size of the catalyst's particles. 20 different solids will be obtained once the thermal decomposition step is completed. Once this step is achieved, the solids will be analyzed with XRD and SEM to confirm the crystallographic phase and the particle size, respectively.