Abstract Synthesis of transportation fuel from lignocellulosic biomass is an attractive solution to the green alternative‐energy problem. The production of biodiesel, in particular, involves the process of upgrading biomass‐derived small molecules to diesel precursors containing a specific carbon range (C 11 –C 23 ). Herein, a carbon‐upgrading process utilizing an acid‐catalyzed condensation of furanic platform molecules from biomass is described. Various types of sulfonic acid catalysts have been evaluated for this process, including biphasic and solid supported catalysts. A silica‐bound alkyl sulfonic acid catalyst has been developed for promoting carbon–carbon bond formation of biomass‐derived carbonyl compounds with 2‐methylfuran. This hydrophobic solid acid catalyst exhibits activity and selectivity that are comparable to those of a soluble acid catalyst. The catalyst can be readily recovered and recycled, possesses appreciable hydrolytic stability in the presence of water, and retains its acidity over multiple reaction cycles. Application of this catalyst to biomass‐derived platform molecules led to the synthesis of a variety of furanic compounds, which are potential biodiesel precursors.

We report the successful application of a templating approach employing ordered mesoporous carbon to the synthesis of BiVO4, Bi2Mo3O12, and Bi0.85V0.55Mo0.45O4 and the performance of these materials as catalysts for the oxidation of propene to acrolein. Ordered mesoporous carbon templates were used to control the nucleation and growth of the mixed metal oxide crystals, allowing higher final surface areas to be obtained. The resulting materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and BET surface area analysis. The surface area of the mixed metal oxide catalysts was found to depend on the type of mesoporous silica used to prepare the carbon template and on the conditions under which the carbon template was formed. Through an appropriate choice of template, the surface areas of the mixed metal oxides exceeded 15 m(2)/g. Catalytic testing revealed that materials produced via templating in ordered mesoporous carbon had per-gram activities that were up to 85 times higher than those produced by a conventional hydrothermal synthesis and exhibited stable catalytic activities over 24 h.

We report a new Ce-rich family of active oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts composed of earth abundant elements, discovered using high-throughput methods.

Methane, ethane, propane, and n-butane were polymerized in a plasma created by a radio-frequency glow discharge. It was found that the kinetics of polymer deposition were similar for all monomers but methane. It is suggested that the deviation from "normal" behavior of methane may be due to the difference in mechanism of formation of reaction intermediates. The "characteristic map" for the plasma polymerization of ethane was determined. It was shown that, in addition to transparent films, powders may be formed at low pressures and low monomer flow rates and unstable discharges at high pressures and low flow rates. With increasing power input, the unstable regions are decreased while the powdery regions are increased. The rates of polymer deposition were found to depend on pressure, flow rate, and power. An empirical equation is proposed that relates the rates of deposition for ethane, propane, and n-butane to these parameters.

Naturally occurring cellulose is crystalline as a consequence of the strong interactions between the glucan chains that comprise it and therefore is insoluble in most solvents. One of the few solvent systems able to dissolve cellulose is lithium chloride (LiCl) dissolved in N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMA). By an integrated application of all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, reaction path optimization, free-energy calculations, and a force-matching analysis of coarse-grained atomistic simulations, we establish that DMA-mediated preferential interactions of Li(+) cations and Cl(-) anions with glucan chains enable cellulose dissolution in LiCl/DMA. The relatively weak solvation of Li(+), Cl(-), and glucan chains by DMA results in strong effective interactions of Li(+) and Cl(-) ions with the glucans, leading to cellulose dissolution. The small size of the Li(+) cations allows them to strongly couple to multiple interaction sites on the glucan chains of cellulose, including the spatially restricted regions around the ether linkages connecting neighboring glucose residues. Li(+) cations were thus identified as the main component responsible for driving cellulose dissolution. The mechanism for explaining the solubility of cellulose in the LiCl/DMA system deduced from the analysis of atomistic-scale simulations conducted in this work is also consistent with most of the empirical observations related to cellulose dissolution in salt/amide solvent systems.

© 2014 American Chemical Society. A hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) model and the quasiclassical trajectory (QCT) method have been combined to study the reaction of alkene methylation by methanol catalyzed by the zeolite H-MFI. The rate-limiting step of this reaction is the methylation of the alkene, and the apparent activation energy calculated at the ωB97X-D/6-31G(d,p)//ωB97X-D/6-311++G(3df,3pd) level of theory for this step agrees well with experiment and previous full QM studies. Following the ethene methylation transition state toward the products along the intrinsic reaction coordinate reveals the existence of a protonated cyclopropane (PCP+) carbocation intermediate. A similar protonated methylcyclopropane (mPCP+) carbocation intermediate is found for propene methylation. The intermediates produced during the alkene methylation reaction are metastable with a lifetime of O(1 ps) obtained from QCTs. Because of the short lifetime of these intermediates, the available energy in the carbocation is not in thermal equilibrium distribution with the zeolite lattice before subsequent reaction occurs. The qualitative difference between product distributions obtained by static and dynamic reaction pathways suggests the pathways of zeolite-catalyzed reactions proceed through high-temperature pathways that differ from the 0 K potential energy surface. The transformation of the m-PCP+ intermediate to the longer-lived secondary 2-butyl carbocation observed during QCTs suggests that more stable carbocations can properly thermalize and exist as reaction intermediates for longer than 1 ps.

Abstract There are few observational studies measuring the ecosystem‐scale productivity effects of changes in incident diffuse photosynthetically active radiation (PAR diffuse ), especially related to wildfire smoke. Climate change‐induced increases to the duration and intensity of fire conditions have made smoke a common occurrence across western North America, with largely unquantified ecosystem feedbacks. Under equivalent amounts of radiation, increased atmospheric particulate matter could lead to a boost in productivity as scattering redistributes photons throughout multilayer canopies. In this work, we leverage a meso‐network of eddy covariance measurement sites across a unique array of managed and restored C 3 and C 4 canopy types to understand how recent wildfire smoke affected ecosystem productivity during the summer of 2018, an especially smoky year in the agriculturally productive Central Valley. We find that diffuse PAR diffuse increased by more than a third compared to the previous growing season, while total PAR was only slightly diminished. These conditions caused nearly a doubling of light use efficiency over the range of diffuse fraction observed, with the highest sensitivity to diffuse fraction exhibited by corn and alfalfa crops. We utilized an empirical model to assess the trade‐off between enhanced diffuse fraction and reduced total PAR. Under mean radiation conditions, daily integrated gross ecosystem productivity increased by 1.2–4.2% compared to the previous growing season. Finally, we explore the potential negative effect of heightened ozone, a copollutant often associated with wildfire. In addition to the effects of wildfire smoke, the results of this natural experiment can help validate future predictions of aerosol‐productivity feedbacks.

Because of human action, the Earth has entered an era where profound changes in the global environment are creating novel conditions that will be discernable far into the future. One consequence may be a large reduction of the Earth's biodiversity, potentially representing a sixth mass extinction. With effective stewardship, the global change drivers that threaten the Earth's biota could be alleviated, but this requires clear understanding of the drivers, their interactions, and how they impact ecological communities. This review identifies 10 anthropogenic global change drivers and discusses how six of the drivers (atmospheric CO2 enrichment, climate change, land transformation, species exploitation, exotic species invasions, eutrophication) impact Earth's biodiversity. Driver impacts on a particular species could be positive or negative. In either case, they initiate secondary responses that cascade along ecological lines of connection and in doing so magnify the initial impact. The unique nature of the threat to the Earth's biodiversity is not simply due to the magnitude of each driver, but due to the speed of change, the novelty of the drivers, and their interactions. Emphasizing one driver, notably climate change, is problematic because the other global change drivers also degrade biodiversity and together threaten the stability of the biosphere. As the main academic journal addressing global change effects on living systems, GCB is well positioned to provide leadership in solving the global change challenge. If humanity cannot meet the challenge, then GCB is positioned to serve as a leading chronicle of the sixth mass extinction to occur on planet Earth.© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. PMID: 31663217 Funding information This work was supported by: Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, International Grant ID: RGPIN-2017-06476