Using zeolites to produce chemical building blocks from green methanol

Chuncheng Liu (TUD) and Sophie van Vreeswijk (UU) joined forces, and published their work in the Chinese Journal of Catalysis. Chuncheng’s research is focused on using green methanol as feedstock for the production of chemical building blocks called aromats, which can be used for a wide variety of everyday products ranging from nylon to aspirin. Meanwhile, Sophie focuses on the use of a certain type of catalysts called zeolites in making chemical building blocks. Together they published their results on how the properties of zeolite catalysts influence the production of chemical building blocks from green methanol.

Zeolites are complex catalysts that consist of a large system of incredibly small pores. Chuncheng and Sophie studied how the amount of aluminium in the zeolite, but also the location and distribution of these aluminium atoms throughout the zeolite, affect the performance of the zeolite catalyst in the production of chemical building blocks. Moreover, they compared different types of zeolites in their study. They compared the influence on the catalyst performance through, for example, the selectivity with which the desired chemical building block was produced, and the lifetime of the catalyst.

Chuncheng has already defended his thesis successfully, and on 30 november, Sophie will hopefully do the same! We wish her good luck in doing so!