Brown bag lecture on Aeromatics set for Wednesday

Montana State University-Northern will continue its Spring 2024 Brown Bag Lecture Series with a presentation titled "Unlocking Sustainable Aromatic Hydrocarbon Production: Insights from Experimental and Theoretical Investigations," by Randy Maglinao, Ph.D., senior research scientist at the Advanced Fuels Center; Evan Davison, a recent Northern graduate; and Amos Taiswa, Northern graduate and Ph.D. candidate at Montana Tech Nanotechnology Laboratory in Butte.

The event will be held Wednesday, May 1, from noon to 1 p.m. in Hensler Auditorium in the Applied Technology Center, and it is open to the public. Sack lunches are provided but limited, so attendees are encouraged to RSVP by Monday, April 2, at https://www.msun.edu/otle/brownbag.aspx or by calling 406-265-3775.

The production of aromatic hydrocarbons, essential for fuels, additives, and polymers, heavily relies on fossil resources. But what if we could find a more sustainable approach? Enter biocrude, a promising bio-based product derived from lignin, with untapped potential. This lecture will highlight the presenters' research findings on transforming biocrude into valuable aromatic hydrocarbons while deciphering its underlying reaction mechanisms. They focused their study on the keto-tautomer mechanism, revealing that aromatic hydrocarbons can indeed be selectively synthesized from biocrude via this route. Computational chemistry simulations further validated the feasibility of their approach. These results led to the development of an efficient catalyst, opening new avenues for sustainable hydrocarbon synthesis.