title: The hydrodeoxygenation of bioderived furans into alkanes.
abstract: The conversion of biomass into fuels and chemical feedstocks is one part of a drive to reduce the world's dependence on crude oil. For transportation fuels in particular, wholesale replacement of a fuel is logistically problematic, not least because of the infrastructure that is already in place. Here, we describe the catalytic defunctionalization of a series of biomass-derived molecules to provide linear alkanes suitable for use as transportation fuels. These biomass-derived molecules contain a variety of functional groups, including olefins, furan rings and carbonyl groups. We describe the removal of these in either a stepwise process or a one-pot process using common reagents and catalysts under mild reaction conditions to provide n-alkanes in good yields and with high selectivities. Our general synthetic approach is applicable to a range of precursors with different carbon content (chain length). This allows the selective generation of linear alkanes with carbon chain lengths between eight and sixteen carbons.
authors.affiliation: Chemistry Division, MS J582, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA. adsutton@lanl.gov
authors.forename: Andrew D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Sutton
authors.forename: Fraser D
authors.initials: FD
authors.lastname: Waldie
authors.forename: Ruilian
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Marcel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schlaf
authors.forename: Louis A Pete
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Silks
authors.forename: John C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Gordon