Seminar - Pr. Markus Antonietti - Tuesday 9 may 2017 - 2:00 pm ICMCB (Amphi)

Hydrothermal reforming (HTR) and hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) are chemical processes to turn carbohydrates (including crude forestry side products, but waste biomass in general) into products which –depending on reaction conditions- can result in value chemicals but also artificial peat (for soil improvement) and industrial high value carbons.

All these processes occur naturally, but are highly accelerated under hydrothermal conditions. Lactid acid “fermentation” for instance can be ran from glucose with very high yields in only 3 minutes, without biology. Even coalification as the final product is highly accelerated to about 1 – 24 h reaction time by employing elevated temperatures between 180 – 230 °C and appropriate catalytic schemes. The processes not only work with a broad variety of “waste biomasses”, they are also exothermic and therefore potentially independent of outer energy sources.

In this talk, I will also present some new HTR processes and a variety of the potential materials generated, such as lactid acid, valerolactone, dimethylfurane, but also new ionic liquids and ionic liquid polymers, and lignin-based phenols. From application side, I will discuss a new economy of biofuels and remixed wood products which both have the chance to be game changers, if we can handle large scale hydrothermal processes.

Recent Publications:

1)      Hu, B; Wang, K; Wu, LH; Yu, SH; Antonietti, M; Titirici, MM: Engineering Carbon Materials from the Hydrothermal Carbonization Process of Biomass ; ADVANCED MATERIALS 22, 813-828, 2010

2)      Titirici, MM; Antonietti, M: Chemistry and materials options of sustainable carbon materials made by hydrothermal carbonization; CHEMICAL SOCIETY REVIEWS 39, 103-116, 2010

3)      Esposito, D; Kirchhecker, S; Antonietti, M : A Sustainable Route towards Imidazolium Building Blocks Based on Biomass Molecules ; CHEMISTRY-A EUROPEAN JOURNAL 19, 15097-15100, 2013

4)      Esposito, D; Antonietti, M  Chemical Conversion of Sugars to Lactic Acid by Alkaline Hydrothermal Processes CHEMSUSCHEM 6, 989-992, 2013

5)      Esposito, Davide; Antonietti, Markus : Redefining biorefinery: the search for unconventional building blocks for materials CHEMICAL SOCIETY REVIEWS 44, 5821 – 5835, 2015

6)      Molinari, Valerio; Clavel, Guylhaine; Graglia, Micaela; Antonietti, Markus: Mild Continuous Hydrogenolysis of Kraft Lignin over Titanium Nitride-Nickel Catalyst,  ACS CATALYSIS 6, 1663-1670, 2016