Rebekah Brucato, Graduate Student, Voutchkova Lab, GW Department of Chemistry

The Department of Chemistry Presents:  Rebekah Brucato, Graduate Student, Voutchkova Lab, GW Department of Chemistry

Recent concerns about environmental fate and depleting fossil resources have made lignocellulosic biomass a hot topic of research. Lignocellulosic biomass has been recognized as an abundant renewable resource and has the potential to meet the demand for biochemicals and biofuels currently being provided via fossil sources of carbon. Specifically, lignin, one of three constituents of lignocellulosic biomass, has the potential to be a sustainable feedstock for the production of aromatic chemicals. Despite lignin being a promising candidate for platform chemicals, efficient and cost-effective catalytic methods for lignin depolymerization have yet to be realized due to its high complexity and recalcitrant nature.

Ionic liquids (ILs) have received large amounts of attention as designer solvents tailored for biomass applications, however, the economic drawback combined with environmental hazards limit ILs applications toward biomass valorization. We address the challenges of ionic liquid utilization by using safe and functional ILs that have been computationally determined to be aquatically safe. We apply these IL systems to biomass valorization to achieve a dilute and cost-effective solubilization method as well as a tandem organosolv and subsequent transfer hydrogenolysis in conjunction with palladium-doped hydrotalcites (HTs) of whole pine lignocellulose. Additionally, we investigate biomass-derived deep eutectic solvents (DES), a subclass of ILs, toward lignin extraction of whole pine.

BIO

Rebekah received her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of North Georgia in 2017. Her research under Dr. Voutchkova-Kostal focused on ionic liquid systems for solubilization and depolymerization processes geared towards biomass valorization and plastic upcycling. Rebekah was recently employed as a Scientist at Kraton Polymers in Savannah, GA where she develops applications of biorefinery products from crude tall oil.

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