Production of Biofuels and Chemicals with Bifunctional Catalysts

Bifunctional catalysts integrate sequential catalytic steps to efficiently transform raw materials into chemical products.  Bifunctional catalysts avoid by-product formation and costly separation steps so that their design and application are seen as the next generation of chemical technology. This text provides state-of-the-art reviews, current research, prospects and challenges of the production of biofuels and chemicals such as furanic biofuels, biodiesel, carboxylic acids, polyols and others from lignocellulosic biomass, furfurals, syngas and γ-valerolactone with bifunctional catalysts, including catalytic, electrocatalytic, and combined biological and chemical catalysis processes. The bifunctionality of catalytic materials is a concept of not only using multifunctional solid materials as activators, but in such a way that the catalytic materials have synergistic characteristics that promote a cascade of transformations which reduces or eliminates reaction and separation steps. The book will be useful for students, researchers, academicians and industrialists in the field of biotechnology, biochemistry and energy.