Description:

Michele L. Sarazen

Title:
Kinetic, Spectroscopic, and Theoretical Investigations
of Light Hydrocarbon Reactions in Porous Catalytic Materials

The optimization and potential industrial application of porous catalysts requires understanding how properties of these materials affect their reactivity and selectivity and how to control these properties via advanced synthesis strategies. Porous crystalline materials, such as zeolites or metal organic frameworks (MOFs), represent a large and diverse pool of heterogeneous catalysts and catalyst supports. Thorough mechanistic investigations that employ characterization of material properties, active-site identification, kinetic and isotopic studies, and computational modeling are needed to elucidate how structure directs function for any reaction or application. Advances in catalysis science and active site engineering are vital to sustainably meet our growing demands for energy and chemicals.

Here, this strategy is employed to investigate the reactions of light hydrocarbons in various porous catalysts. Light alkenes and alkanes can be sourced from conventional (petroleum), renewable (biomass), and emerging (shale gas) feedstocks; their selective and efficient conversion to transportation fuels and/or molecular building blocks for valuable polymers and chemicals is a major target of heterogeneous catalysis research. The coupling of alkenes and incorporation of alkanes into alkene mixtures is catalyzed by protons in the form of solid Brønsted acids such as zeolites. How the local environment (confinement) of these protons, varied by changes in zeolite framework, as well as their acid strength influences the relative stability of precursors and transition states will be discussed. Further, the use of metal sites, either in physical mixture with solid acids or as monofunctional MOF-derived metal nanoparticles on carbon supports, was also investigated for the dehydrogenation of alkanes to alkenes. These studies combine catalytic material design and synthesis with kinetic analysis and density functional theory to develop the general and unifying concepts underlying how these catalysts work to convert abundant feedstocks into value-added fuels and chemicals.

Bio:

Dr. Michele L. Sarazen is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology, working with Professor Christopher W. Jones. Her current research is the synthesis of aminopolymers for application in CO2 capture sorbents as well as metal organic framework mediated synthesis of catalysts for propane dehydrogenation. She obtained a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Her Ph.D. research, working with Professor Enrique Iglesia, focused on a molecular understanding of alkene and alkane chain growth on solid acid catalysts. Her work was recognized with the Heinz Heinemann Prize for graduate research in catalysis from UC Berkeley’s College of Chemistry and the National Science Foundation GRFP.