@article{2db697a2b0a94dcfb4fe9f4551049c39,
title = "Interplay of Lewis and Br{\o}nsted Acid Sites in Zr-Based Metal-Organic Frameworks for Efficient Esterification of Biomass-Derived Levulinic Acid",
abstract = "We report the performance of UiO-66 and its Br{\o}nsted acid functionalized derivative, UiO-66-(COOH)2, as heterogeneous catalysts for levulinic acid esterification with ethanol. Importantly, compared with UiO-66, UiO-66-(COOH)2 displayed superior catalytic performance (up to 97.0 ± 1.1% yield of ethyl levulinate) attributed to the synergistic effect between Lewis acidic Zr clusters and Br{\o}nsted acidic -COOH groups. Furthermore, UiO-66-(COOH)2 was stable and reusable without an appreciable loss in catalytic activity for at least five consecutive cycles. This study demonstrates that the interplay of Br{\o}nsted and Lewis acid sites in zirconium metal-organic frameworks leads to more efficient catalytic conversion of a biomass feedstock to biofuel, and with further hypothesis driven research, additional materials that show promise as candidates for catalytic conversion of biomass feedstocks to biofuels and valuable chemicals can be developed.",
keywords = "esterification, ethyl levulinate, heterogeneous catalysis, levulinic acid, metal-organic framework",
author = "Fenfen Wang and Zhijie Chen and Haoyuan Chen and Goetjen, {Timothy A.} and Peng Li and Xingjie Wang and Selim Alayoglu and Kaikai Ma and Yongwei Chen and Tiejun Wang and Timur Islamoglu and Yanxiong Fang and Snurr, {Randall Q.} and Farha, {Omar K.}",
note = "Funding Information: O.K.F. acknowledges the financial support from the Inorganometallic Catalyst Design Center, an EFRC funded by the DOE, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (DE-SC0012702). R.Q.S. thanks the Defense Threat Reduction Agency for support (HDTRA1-18-1-0003). This work made use of the X-ray instrumentation of the IMSERC facility at Northwestern University, which has received support from the Soft and Hybrid Nanotechnology Experimental (SHyNE) Resource (NSF ECCS-1542205), the State of Illinois, and the International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN), as well as the Reactor Engineering and Catalyst Testing (REACT) core facility at Northwestern University, which acknowledges funding from the Department of Energy (DE-FG02-03ER15457, DE-AC02-06CH11357) used for the purchase of the Nicolet 6700 FT-IR and Harrick DRIFTS accessory. The authors acknowledge the Quest high-performance computing facility at Northwestern University for providing computing resources. F.W. thanks the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant numbers: 21808041 and 21776049). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 American Chemical Society. Copyright: Copyright 2019 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",
year = "2019",
month = sep,
day = "4",
doi = "10.1021/acsami.9b07769",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "11",
pages = "32090--32096",
journal = "ACS applied materials & interfaces",
issn = "1944-8244",
publisher = "American Chemical Society",
number = "35",
}