Title: Development of heterogeneous catalysts for the production of chemicals from biomass or CO2
Speaker: Professor Keiichi Tomishige (Tohoku University)
Time: 15:00p.m., May 10th, 2017
Venue: Room 105, Shaw Engineering Building, Wushan Campus

Abstract:
The development of new catalysts is essential for the conversion of biomass and CO2. The heterogeneous catalysts offer various possibilities for the selective and deep C-O hydrogenolysis, and deoxydehydration of biomass-related substrates to value-added chemicals. Regarding CO2 conversion to valuable chemicals, CeO2 showed characteristic performance in the synthesis of carbonates, carbamates, and ureas from CO2 and the corresponding reactants. This performance can be related to the interaction of CeO2 surface with hydroxy and amino groups, suggesting that acid-base bifunctionality of CeO2 is an important property. For hydrogen production by the reforming of biomass tar, the uniform Ni–Fe alloy nanoparticles prepared by calcination and reduction of a hydrotalcite precursor was developed, and the catalyst showed high performance in the steam reforming of the biomass tar. In particular, the Ni–Fe alloy nanoparticles on Ni–Fe/Mg/Al exhibit high regenerability toward oxidation–reduction treatment.
Brief introduction to Dr. Keiichi Tomishige：
Dr. Keiichi Tomishige received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. from Department of Chemistry, University of Tokyo. Now he is a Professor in School of Engineering, Tohoku University. His research interests are the development of heterogeneous catalysts for:
1) production of biomass-derived chemicals,
2) direct synthesis of organic carbonates from CO2 and alcohols,
3) steam reforming of biomass tar, and
4) syngas production by natural gas reforming.
Professor Tomishige has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers (Citation = 6692, and H-index = 49, Web of Science). He is Associate Editor of Fuel Processing Technology (2014/2-), Editorial board of Applied Catalysis A (2009/4-), Editorial advisory board of ACS Catalysis (2013/11-), International Advisory Board of ChemSusChem (2015/1-) and Advisory Board of Green Chemistry (2016/8-).