Qingqing Mei

Zhejiang University | ZJU

Proton-exchange membrane fuel cells enable the portable utilization of hydrogen (H2) as an energy resource. Current electrolytic materials have limitation, and there is an urgent need to develop new materials showing especially high proton conductivity. Here, we report the ultra-fast proton conduction in a novel metal-organic framework, MFM-808, wh...

Exploring the regulation of nitrogen transformation in bioaugmented mechanical composting (BMC) process for rural kitchen waste (KW) is essential to avoid the "not-in-my-backyard" phenomenon caused by nitrogen loss. Herein, nitrogen transformation and loss in BMC versus conventional pile composting (CPC) of KW were compared. The results showed that...

Elemental sulfur (S0) is widely utilized in environmental pollution control, while its low bioavailability has become a bottleneck for S0-based biotechnologies. Biogenic sulfur (bio-S0) has been demonstrated to have superior bioavailability, while little is known about its mechanisms thus far. This study investigated the bioavailability and relevan...

The method of oxidative upgrade by nitric acid is used to convert polystyrene plastic into a high-value chemical raw material, benzoic acid. The yield can reach nearly 90% at 180 °C within 3 h, while the purity of the product can reach more than 95%.

An innovative biodrying-enhanced composting (BEC) system that applies biodrying to composting process as its start-up stage was developed to rapidly process kitchen waste (KW) into highly maturate products. The BEC performance and potential mechanisms of rapid start-up and humification were explored through a continuous pilot experiment. The result...

The development of materials showing rapid proton conduction with a low activation energy and stable performance over a wide temperature range is an important and challenging line of research. Here, we report confinement of sulfuric acid within porous MFM-300(Cr) to give MFM-300(Cr)·SO4(H3O)2, which exhibits a record-low activation energy of 0.04 e...

Selective hydrodeoxygenation of biomass-derived aromatic alcohols to value-added chemical or fuel is of great importance for sustainable biomass upgrading and hydrodeoxygenation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) to 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF) is one of the most attractive reactions. Achieving the conversion of HMF to DMF using H2 at ambient temperature...

The status of surface species on solid catalysts during heterogeneous catalysis is often mysterious. Investigations of these surface species are crucial to deconvolute the reaction network and design more efficient catalysts. Vibrational spectroscopy is a powerful technique to study the interactions between surface species and the catalysts and inf...

N‐doped carbon nanopolyhedron@nanosheet composite produced by a salt‐confined route harnesses 3D porous framework, dual‐carbon architecture and harmonized nitrogen content, accordingly enabling excellent potassium ion storage toward the construction of high‐performance potassium‐ion hybrid capacitor device. (DOI: 10.1002/inf2.12225) N‐doped carbon...

Nitrogen doping has readily emerged as an efficient solution to boost potassium‐ion storage of carbonaceous materials. Nevertheless, the capacity and lifespan enhancement of derived electrodes is still plagued by the incompetent in coordinating the dopant configurations. In the realm of emerging potassium‐ion hybrid capacitor (PIHC) device, dictati...

Among various anode candidates for potassium‐ion batteries, carbonaceous materials have attracted significant attention due to their overwhelming advantages including cost effectiveness and environmental benignity. However, the inferior specific capacity and the sluggish reaction kinetics hinder the further development in this realm. Herein we repo...

4-Ethyltoluene is a very valuable chemical that is currently produced from fossil feedstocks. Production of 4-ethyltoluene from the renewable and cheap lignin is of great significance. Herein, we report a new route to produce 4-ethyltoluene from lignin. It was discovered that RhCl3-LiI-LiBF4 was efficient catalytic system for the reaction of lignin...

Guaiacol is an important feedstock for producing various high-value chemicals. However, the current production route of guaiacol relies heavily on the fossil resources. Using lignin as a cheap and renewable feedstock to selectively produce guaiacol has great potential, but is a challenge because of its heterogeneity and inert reaction activity. Her...

The hydrogenolysis of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) to 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF) is a very significant reaction, a typical route for producing important chemicals from biomass. Efficient catalysts without any additive for the hydrogenolysis of HMF to DMF under mild condition are highly desirable. Herein, we found that the Pd/C catalyst prepared in γ-...

A low-cost and green biorefinery will increase the economy and revenue from lignocellulosic biomass. Herein, a biomass-derived deep eutectic solvent (DES) pretreatment was developed to deconstruct the recalcitrant structure of Eucalyptus for further cellulose enzymatic hydrolysis and lignin valorization. The DES solvent consisted of biomass-derived...

Utilization of lignin as a feedstock to produce valuable chemicals is of great importance. However, it is a great challenge to produce pure chemicals because of the complex structure of lignin. Selective utilization of specific group from lignin provides the possibility for preparing chemicals with high selectivity, but this strategy has not attrac...

One-pot oxidative transformation of alcohols into esters is very attractive, but metal-based catalysts are used in the reported routes. We discovered that the basic ionic liquid 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate ([EMIM] OAc) could effectively catalyze this kind of reaction using O 2 as an oxidant without any other catalysts or additives. The oxid...

Ether bond activation is very interesting because the synthesis of many valuable compounds involves conversion of ethers. Moreover, C–O bond cleavage is also very important for the transformation of biomass, especially lignin, which abundantly contains ether bonds. Developing efficient methods to activate aromatic ether bonds has attracted much att...

Azobenzene and its derivatives are key raw materials and it is an environmentally friendly method for the preparation of azobenzene by hydrogenative coupling of nitrobenzene. The development of nickel based catalyst for organic transformations is of importance because of its relatively low cost and toxicity. In this work, we found that ethylenediam...

Lignin is one of the most important biomass resources. With the increasing consumption of petroleum resource, lignin transformation is of strategic significance and has attracted widely interest. As lignin is a random construction of aromatic monomers, the degradation products are usually very complex, which limits the scaling application of lignin...

Selective hydrogenation of α,β-unsaturated aldehydes to unsaturated alcohols can reach high selectivity and activity at room temperature using Pt nanoparticles immobilized on non-porous Al2O3 support stability by aspartic acid. Aspartic...

Hierarchically porous N and S co-doped carbon was prepared using 2,5-dihydroxy-1,4-benzoquinone as the carbon source, thiourea as N and S source, and SiO2 particles as the template. Using the material...

Developing hybrid carbon materials with unique micro-/nano-structured and multicomponent features is of great importance in catalysis, energy storage and conversion. Herein, we demonstrate the formation of a novel kind of hybrid carbon material, i.e., the bimetallic nanoparticles are supported by ultrathin (~5.5 nm) and porous carbon nanosheets, by...

Selective transformation of lignin into a valuable chemical, acetic acid, is possible. In their Communication (DOI: 10.1002/anie.201706846) B. Han, H. Liu, et al. propose a strategy for selective transformation of methoxy group (-OCH3), which is abundant in lignin, into pure acetic acid. The conversions of methoxy group in the kraft lignin and orga...

Die selektive Umwandlung von Lignin in Essigsäure ist das Thema der Zuschrift (DOI: 10.1002/ange.201706846) von B. Han, H. Liu, et al. Mit einer von ihnen entwickelten Strategie überführen sie in Lignin zahlreich vorhandene Methoxygruppen in reine Essigsäure, wobei Umsätze von 87.3% und 80.4% für Kraft- bzw. Organosolv-Lignin erreicht werden und ke...

Selective transformation of lignin into a valuable chemical is of great importance and challenge due to its complex structure. Herein, we propose the strategy for the transformation of methoxyl group (-OCH3) which is abundant in lignin into pure highly valuable chemicals. As an example to apply this strategy, the route to produce acetic acid with h...

The ZnI2(NEt3)/NEt3 catalyzed cycloaddition of CO2 with propargylic alcohols to α-alkylidene cyclic carbonates was first studied by density functional theory (DFT) to explore the detailed reaction mechanism. By comparing the distinct CO2-activated and OH-activated pathways as well as the solvent effects of reactants and products, a complete picture...

Hydration of internal aryl alkynes to provide aryl carbonyl compounds is a class of important reactions and has been widely investigated. However, the hydration of asymmetric internal aryl alkynes without directing groups usually gave aryl ketone or a mixture of aryl ketone and α-aryl ketone. High regioselectivity to α-aryl ketone is a great challe...

Isoquinolines (IQs) are an abundant feedstock, and N-formyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinolines (FTHIQs) are valuable fine chemicals and key intermediates. Herein, we report for the first time the Co0/ZnCl2-catalyzed direct N-formylation of IQs by using CO2 with H2 to produce FTHIQs. It was discovered that the Co catalyst and ZnCl2 worked synergistical...

B(C6F5)3 combined with atmospheric CO2 was found to be highly effective for the cyclization of ortho-substituted aniline derivatives with N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF), and a series of N-containing heterocycles including benzothiazoles, benzimidazoles, quinazolinone and benzoxazole were obtained in good to excellent yields. © 2016 The Royal Society o...

In this work, we fabricated the poly(N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone) (PVP)-stabilized ruthenium(0) nanoclusters by reduction of RuCl3 using different reducing agents, and studied their catalytic activity in hydrogen generation from the decomposition of formic acid. It was demonstrated that N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone (NVP), which is a monomer of PVP, could promot...

No abstract is available for this article.

Alkylidiene cyclic carbonates are prepared by carboxylative cyclization of propargylic alcohols with CO2 using ZnI2/NEt3 as synergistic catalytic system.

We carried out work on N-formylation of amines with CO2 and PhSiH3 to produce formamides catalyzed by a copper complex. It was found that the Cu(OAc)2–bis(diphenylphosphino)ethane (dppe) catalytic system was very efficient for these kind of reactions at room temperature and 1 atm CO2 with only 0.1 mol% catalyst loading.

Formamides have wide applications in the industry and have been synthesized using CO2 as a carbon source and H2 as a reducing agent. However, previous systems required a noble catalyst and high temperature to achieve high efficiency, and the substrate scope was mostly limited to saturated amines. The selective N-formylation of amines containing uns...

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an abundant and renewable feedstock for the production of value-added chemicals. Herein, we carried out the first work to use ZnI2/NEt3 as the catalyst for the reactions of CO2 and propargylic alcohols to form α-alkylidene cyclic carbonates. It was discovered that the catalyst system could efficiently promote the reaction at...

Study of the geometrical structures and electronic properties of metal nanoparticles is a very interesting topic. In this work we studied the effects of cyclohexane, benzene, ethanol, and water on bond lengths, Mulliken charge distributions, binding energy (BE), energy gap between highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and the lowest unoccupied...

Studying the microstructure and intermolecular interactions of ionic liquid (IL) systems is of great importance. In this work, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed on 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([Bmim][PF6])+water+ethanol and [Bmim][PF6]+water+isopropanol ternary systems. Radial distribution functions were calcula...

It was found that CO2 could induce the gelation of Pluronic aqueous solutions, during which the microstructure of the solution transforms from randomly dispersed spherical micelles to cubic close packed micelles. The gelation switched by compressed CO2 has many advantages and can be applied in the synthesis of porous materials.

In this work we propose a new thermodynamic principle in which a supercritical fluid (SCF)-solid system is divided into a solid phase, a cluster phase, and a bulk fluid phase, i.e., the molecular clusters in the system are considered as an individual phase. The phase equilibria of various SCF-solid systems are calculated using this principle in com...

The phase behaviors of 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([bmim] [PF6]) + water+methanol, [bmim][PF6]+water+ethanol, [bmim][PF6]+water+2-propanol, and [bmim][PF6]+water+1- propanol ternary systems were determined at 298.15 K and ambient pressure. It was demonstrated that when the mole fractions of the alcohols in the water+alcohol sol...

The density, viscosity and conductivity of ionic liquids (ILs), 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([omim][BF4]), 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([omim][Cl]), 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([hmim] BF4]), 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([hmim][Cl]), 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([hmim][PF6]),...

In order to obtain high-efficiency monochromatic red emission in polymer light-emitting devices, a tris(dibenzoylmethanato)(dipyrido(3,2-a:2′,3′-c)phenazine) europium [Eu(DBM)3(DPPZ)] doped single-emissive-layer devices were fabricated using a blend of poly(9,9-dioctyl-fluorence) and 2-tert-butyl-phenyl-5-biphenyl-1,3,4-oxadiazole as a host matrix...