george w. huber

~bio~

-status-
Graduated July 7, 2005 (Ph.D.)

Employed by the University of Massachusetts - Amherst

-research area-
Biorefining

 -hometown-
Santa Rosa, CA

-undergraduate-
Brigham Young University

 -publications-
see attached CV



~research summary~

Renewable Hydrogen and Liquid Alkanes from Catalytic Biorefining of
Biomass-derived Carbohydrates


            Concerns about global warming, national security and the diminishing supply of fossil fuels are causing our society to search for new renewable sources of transportation fuels.  In this respect, we have recently developed two new heterogeneous catalytic processes, operating in the aqueous phase, to convert biomass-derived carbohydrates to H₂ and alkanes. Hydrogen can be produced by aqueous-phase reforming (APR) of carbohydrates at low temperatures (423-538 K) in a single reactor over supported metal catalysts.  A combination of fundamental and high-throughput studies were undertaken to optimize catalysts and reaction conditions for H production.  While Ni-based catalysts produce large amounts of methane from APR of oxygenated hydrocarbons, we have discovered that the addition of Sn to Ni decreases the rate of methane production, while still maintaining high rates of H₂ production.  A Raney Ni-Sn catalyst was synthesized that exhibited high activity and selectivity for production of H₂, with values comparable to Pt based catalysts.           

Alkanes ranging from C1 to C6 can be produced by aqueous phase dehydration/hydrogenation (APD/H) of sorbitol (hydrogenated glucose) by a bi-functional pathway.  Sorbitol is repeatedly dehydrated by a solid acid(SiO₂-Al2O₃) or a mineral acid (HCl) catalyst and then hydrogenated on a metal catalyst (Pt or Pd).  The biorefining of sugars to alkanes plus CO₂ and water is an exothermic process in which the products retain approximately 95 % of the heating value and only 30 % of the mass of the reactant.  Larger liquid alkanes ranging from C7-C15, which could be used as a premium, sulfur free diesel fuel, can be produced by APD/H of larger carbohydrate-derived molecules.

-in collaboration with-
Chris Barrett, Juben Chheda, John Shabaker

 

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