Guanying Yang

Continuous-flow formic acid production from hydrogenation of CO2 without any base Hydrogen economy is charming for our society, and storage of hydrogen efficiently is a key step. Formic acid is a relative ideal medium for hydrogen storage. Hydrogenation of CO2 to formic acid is a thermodynamic limited reaction, and continuous production of formic acid from CO2 effectively is very interesting.

We explored the oxidation reactions of lignin model compounds directly induced by ionic liquids under metal-free condi-tions. In this work, it was found that ionic liquid 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate as a solvent could promote the aero-bic oxidation of lignin model compounds 2-phenoxyacetophenone (1) and the yields of phenol and benzoic acid from 1 could be as high as 96% and 86%, respectively. A possible reaction pathway was proposed based on a series of control ex-periments.