Adipic acid is one of the key ingredients used in most nylon production. At present, it is still mostly extracted from petroleum products. However, non-renewable resources are nowadays over-exploited, and in recent years the focus has been on exploring a process that would ensure the extraction of adipic acid from biomass. This is the subject of my thesis. I will be looking at selective dehydroxydation using heterogeneous catalysts. Although there have been quite a few studies with homogeneous catalysts, they are difficult to separate from the reaction mixture, so heterogeneous catalysis is highly desirable, where the final components can be separated and the catalyst can even be recycled and reused. I used rhenium on carbon as the catalyst, which is essential for the dehydroxylation process. I then combined the Re/C with other metal catalysts (Pt/C, Pd/C, Ni/C) to induce hydrogenation and thus direct the reaction to the adipic acid ester.
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