Methanol-Assisted Autocatalysis in Catalytic Methanol Synthesis.

Catalytic methanol synthesis is one of the major processes in the chemical industry and may grow in importance, as methanol produced from CO2 and sustainably derived H2 are envisioned to play an important role as energy carriers in a future low-CO2 -emission society. However, despite the widespread use, the reaction mechanism and the nature of the active sites are not fully understood. Here we report that methanol synthesis at commercially applied conditions using the industrial Cu/ZnO/Al2 O3 catalyst is dominated by a methanol-assisted autocatalytic reaction mechanism. We propose that the presence of methanol enables the hydrogenation of surface formate via methyl formate. Autocatalytic acceleration of the reaction is also observed for Cu supported on SiO2 although with low absolute activity, but not for Cu/Al2 O3 catalysts. The results illustrate an important example of autocatalysis in heterogeneous catalysis and pave the way for further understanding, improvements, and process optimization of industrial methanol synthesis.

Thermal Cracking of Sugars for the Production of Glycolaldehyde and Other Small Oxygenates.

Thermal cracking of sugars for production of glycolaldehyde, a potential renewable platform molecule, in yields up to 74 % with up to 95 % carbon recovered in the condensed product is demonstrated using glucose as the feed. The process involves spraying an aqueous sugar solution into a fluidized bed of glass beads. Continuous operation is carried out for more than 90 h with complete conversion and stable product selectivity. Besides glycolaldehyde, the other identified condensed products are pyruvaldehyde (9 %), formaldehyde (7 %), glyoxal (2 %), acetol (2 %), and acetic acid (1 %). The effects of temperature, glucose feed concentration, and type of sugar feedstock are investigated. Cracking the monosaccharides fructose and xylose leads to very different product distributions from glucose, but similar carbon recovery. A reaction network in agreement with the main observed products from cracking of monosaccharide sugars is proposed.

Ketene as a Reaction Intermediate in the Carbonylation of Dimethyl Ether to Methyl Acetate over Mordenite.

Unprecedented insight into the carbonylation of dimethyl ether over Mordenite is provided through the identification of ketene (CH2CO) as a reaction intermediate. The formation of ketene is predicted by detailed DFT calculations and verified experimentally by the observation of doubly deuterated acetic acid (CH2DCOOD), when D2O is introduced in the feed during the carbonylation reaction.

Cell mass and cell cycle dynamics of an asynchronous budding yeast population: experimental observations, flow cytometry data analysis, and multi-scale modeling.

Despite traditionally regarded as identical, cells in a microbial cultivation present a distribution of phenotypic traits, forming a heterogeneous cell population. Moreover, the degree of heterogeneity is notably enhanced by changes in micro-environmental conditions. A major development in experimental single-cell studies has taken place in the last decades. It has however not been fully accompanied by similar contributions within data analysis and mathematical modeling. Indeed, literature reporting, for example, quantitative analyses of experimental single-cell observations and validation of model predictions for cell property distributions against experimental data is scarce. This study focuses on the experimental and mathematical description of the dynamics of cell size and cell cycle position distributions, of a population of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, in response to the substrate consumption observed during batch cultivation. The good agreement between the proposed multi-scale model (a population balance model [PBM] coupled to an unstructured model) and experimental data (both the overall physiology and cell size and cell cycle distributions) indicates that a mechanistic model is a suitable tool for describing the microbial population dynamics in a bioreactor. This study therefore contributes towards the understanding of the development of heterogeneous populations during microbial cultivations. More generally, it consists of a step towards a paradigm change in the study and description of cell cultivations, where average cell behaviors observed experimentally now are interpreted as a potential joint result of various co-existing single-cell behaviors, rather than a unique response common to all cells in the cultivation.

Evaluation of binary solvent mixtures for efficient monoacylglycerol production by continuous enzymatic glycerolysis.

This study was aimed at evaluating different binary solvent mixtures for efficient industrial monoacylglycerol (MAG) production by enzymatic glycerolysis. Of all investigated cases, the binary mixture of tert-butanol:tert-pentanol (TB:TP) 80:20 vol % was the most suitable organic medium for continuous enzymatic glycerolysis, ensuring high MAG formation in a short time, reasonable solvent price, and easy handling during distillation/condensation processing. A minimum solvent dosage of 44-54 wt % of the reaction mixture was necessary to achieve high MAG yields of 47-56 wt %, within 20 min. The melting and boiling points of the TB:TP mixture were estimated to be 7 and 85 degrees C, respectively, using thermodynamic models. These predictions were in good agreement with experimentally determined values. In spite of the high reaction efficiency in the binary TB:TP system, the mixture of glycerol and sunflower oil (containing 97.1% triacylglycerol) yielded surprisingly a liquid/liquid phase split behavior even at high temperatures (>80 degrees C). This in contrast to thermodynamic model calculations suggested full miscibility in all proportions. These findings suggest that enhanced reaction efficiency in organic solvent also depends upon aspects other than the system homogeneity such as reduced viscosity, reduced mass transfer limitations, and the accessibility of the substrate to the active site of the enzyme.

Thermal dissociation of SO3 at 1000-1400 K.

The thermal dissociation of SO3 has been studied for the first time in the 1000-1400 K range. The experiments were conducted in a laminar flow reactor at atmospheric pressure, with nitrogen as the bath gas. On the basis of the flow reactor data, a rate constant for SO3 + N2 --> SO2 + O + N2 (R1b) of 5.7 x 10(17) exp(-40000/T) cm3/(mol s) is derived for the temperature range 1273-1348 K. The estimated uncertainty is a factor of 2. The rate constant corresponds to a value of the reverse reaction of k1 approximately 1.8 x 10(15) cm6 mol(-2) s(-1). The reaction is in the fall-off region under the investigated conditions. The temperature and pressure dependence of SO2 + O (+N2) was estimated from the extrapolation of low temperature results for the reaction, together with an estimated broadening parameter and the high-pressure limit determined recently by Naidoo, Goumri, and Marshall (Proc. Combust. Inst. 2005, 30, 1219-1225). The theoretical rate constant is in good agreement with the experimental results. The improved accuracy in k(1) allows a reassessment of the rate constant for SO3 + O --> SO2 + O2 (R2) based on the data of Smith, Tseregounis, and Wang (Int. J. Chem. Kinet. 1982, 14, 679-697), who conducted experiments on a low-pressure CO/O2/Ar flame doped with SO2. At the location in the flame where the net SO3 formation rate is zero, k2 = k1[SO2][M]/[SO3]. A value of 6.9 x 10(10) cm3 mol(-1) s(-1) is obtained for k2 at 1269 K with an uncertainty a factor of 3. A recommended rate constant k2 = 7.8 x 10(11) exp(-3065/T) cm3 mol(-1) s(-1) is consistent with other flame results as well as the present flow reactor data.