Novel Catalysts for Versatile Conversion of Butanediol Fermentation Mixture

Biomass fermentation to butanediols is an important biological conversion pathway and butanediols are very useful chemical building blocks for production of solvents, chemicals and fuels. Byproducts, such as acetoin and ethanol, are also accompanied during butanediols production. Due to the high boiling points of butanediols and acetoin, it’s very challenging and costly to separate them from water. It will be very attractive and promising to develop an approach to directly convert aqueous butanediols fermentation mixture to liquid hydrocarbon fuels and valuable chemicals/co-products. This invention discloses new catalyst materials that are able to directly convert the aqueous butanediol fermentation mixture into fuel intermediate, solvent and chemicals.