Improving the Yield and Rate of Acid-Catalyzed Deconstruction of Lignin by Mechanochemical Activation

Polymer and small molecule mechanochemistry: closer than ever

The formation and scission of chemical bonds facilitated by mechanical force (mechanochemistry) can be accomplished through various experimental strategies. Among them, ultrasonication of polymeric matrices and ball milling of reaction partners have become the two leading approaches to carry out polymer and small molecule mechanochemistry, respectively. Often, the methodological differences between these practical strategies seem to have created two seemingly distinct lines of thought within the field of mechanochemistry. However, in this Perspective article, the reader will encounter a series of studies in which some aspects believed to be inherently related to either polymer or small molecule mechanochemistry sometimes overlap, evidencing the connection between both approaches.

Kinetic Energy Dose as a Unified Metric for Comparing Ball Mills in the Mechanocatalytic Depolymerization of Lignocellulose

Mechanochemistry utilizes mechanical forces to activate chemical bonds. It offers environmentally benign routes for both (bio) organic and inorganic syntheses. However, direct comparison of mechanochemistry results is often very challenging. In mechanochemical synthetic protocols, ball mill setup (mechanical design and grinding vessel geometry) in addition to experimental parameters (milling frequency, duration, ball count and size) vary broadly. This fact poses a severe issue to further progress in this exciting research area because ball mill setup and experimental parameters govern how much kinetic energy is transferred to a chemical reaction. In this work, we address the challenge of comparing mechanochemical reaction results by taking the energy dose provided by ball mills as a unified metric into account. In this quest, we applied kinematic modeling to two ball mills functioning under distinct working principles to express the energy dose as a mathematical function of the experimental parameters. By examining the effect of energy dose on the extent of the mechanocatalytic depolymerization (MCD) of lignocellulosic biomass (beechwood), we found linear correlations between yield of water-soluble products (WSP) and energy dose for both ball mills. Interestingly, when a substrate layer is formed on the grinding jar wall and/or grinding medium, a weak non-linear correlation between water-soluble products yield and energy dose is identified. We demonstrate that the chemical reaction’s best utilization of kinetic energy is achieved in the linear regime, which presents improved WSP yields for given energy doses. In the broader context, the current analysis outlines the usefulness of the energy dose as a unified metric in mechanochemistry to further the understanding of reaction results obtained from different ball mills operating under varied experimental conditions.

Acceleration by double activation catalysis and its negation with rising temperature in hydrolysis of cellobiose with phthalic and hydrochloric acids

Double activation catalysis was experimentally observed in hydrolysis of cellobiose catalyzed simultaneously with phthalic and hydrochloric acids, confirming earlier theoretical prediction known from literature. Both acids can catalyze the reaction individually, and contribution of the double-activation pathway to the total reaction rate declines as temperature increases. In fact, above a certain temperature, the hydrolysis rate in presence of both acids becomes lower than the sum of the rates for the two acids acting individually. A kinetic model is proposed to explain this transition between double-activated catalysis and inhibition. The trend of declining contribution of cooperative catalytic pathway with rising temperature is theorized to be generally applicable for any reaction with a pathway involving simultaneous action of two catalysts when either of them can individually catalyze the reaction.

On the Electronic Structure Origin of Mechanochemically Induced Selectivity in Acid-Catalyzed Chitin Hydrolysis

Recently, mechanical ball milling was applied to chitin depolymerization. The mechanical activation afforded higher selectivity toward glycosidic bond cleavage over amide bond breakage. Hence, the bioactive N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) monomer was preferentially produced over glucosamine. In this regard, the force-dependent mechanochemical activation-deactivation process in the relaxed and pulled GlcNAc dimer undergoing deacetylation and depolymerization reactions was studied. For the relaxed case, the activation energies of the rate-determining steps (RDS) proved that the two reactions could occur simultaneously. Mechanical forces associated with ball milling were approximated with linear pulling and were introduced explicitly in the RDS of both reactions through force-modified potential energy surface (FMPES) formalism. In general, as the applied pulling force increases, the activation energy of the RDS of deacetylation shows no meaningful change, while that of depolymerization decreases. This result is consistent with the selectivity exhibited in the experiment. Energy and structural analyses for the depolymerization showed that the activation can be attributed to a significant change in the glycosidic dihedral at the reactant state. A lone pair of the neighboring pyranose ring O adopts a syn-periplanar conformation relative to the glycosidic bond. This promotes electron donation to the σ*-orbital of the glycosidic bond, leading to activation. Consequently, the Brønsted-Lowry basicity of the glycosidic oxygen also increases, which can facilitate acid catalysis.