Catalysis in Biomass Conversion

Rudi van Eldik was born in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) in 1945 and grew up in Johannesburg (South Africa). He received his chemistry education and DSc degree at the former Potchefstroom University (SA), followed by post-doctoral work at the State University of New York at Buffalo (USA) and the University of Frankfurt (Germany). After completing his Habilitation in Physical Chemistry at the University of Frankfurt in 1982, he was appointed as Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the Private University of Witten/Herdecke in 1987. In 1994 he became Professor of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, from where he retired in 2010. At present he is Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and Visiting Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the N. Copernicus University in Torun, Poland.His research interests cover the elucidation of inorganic and bioinorganic reaction mechanisms, with special emphasis on the application of high pressure thermodynamic and kinetic techniques. In recent years his research team also focused on the application of low-temperature rapid-scan techniques to identify and study reactive intermediates in catalytic cycles, and on mechanistic studies in ionic liquids. He is Editor of the series Advances in Inorganic Chemistry since 2003. He serves on the Editorial Boards of several chemistry journals. He is the author of over 880 research papers and review articles in international journals and supervised 80 PhD students. He has received honorary doctoral degrees from the former Potchefstroom University, SA (1997), Kragujevac University, Serbia (2006), Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland (2010), University of Pretoria, SA (2010), and Ivanovo State University of Chemistry and Technology, Russia (2012). He has developed a promotion activity for chemistry and related experimental sciences in the form of chemistry edutainment presentations during the period 1995-2010. In 2009 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit (‘Bundesverdienstkreuz’) by the Federal President of Germany, and the Inorganic Mechanisms Award by the Royal Society of Chemistry (London).His hobbies include music, hiking, jogging, cycling and motor-biking. He is the father of two and grandfather of four children. Peter C. Ford is at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California Santa Barbara, CA, USA.

• 1. Transition Metal-Based Catalysts for the Conversion of Levulinic Acid to Gamma-ValerolactoneIstván T. Horváth and László T. Mika.2. Biomass valorization: catalytic approaches using benign-by-design nanomaterialsDaily Rodríguez-Padrón, Alina M. Balu, Antonio A. Romero and Rafael Luque3. The thousand faces of Cu-doped porous mixed oxides (Cu-PMO) in the conversion of renewable resources and beyond Mario De bruyn, Zhuohua Sun and Katalin Barta4. Sequential Oxidation-Depolymerization Strategies for Lignin Conversion to Low Molecular Weight Aromatic ChemicalsYanbin Cui, Shannon L. Goes and Shannon S. Stahl5. Lignin Extraction and Valorization using Heterogeneous Transition Metal CatalystsBaoyuan Liu and Mahdi M. Abu-Omar6. Catalytic cleavage of lignin C–O and C–C bondsChaofeng Zhang and Feng Wang7. Design of task-specific nickel phosphides for the sustainable manufacture of advanced biofuels from waste lignocellulosic biomassMichael Dierks. Zhenweng Cao and Roberto Rinaldi8. The RCF Biorefinery: Building on a Chemical Platform from LigninWouter Arts, Dieter Ruijten, Korneel Van Aelst, Laura Trullemans and Bert Sels 9. Enhancing Product Selectivity in Biomass and Bioalcohol Reactions over Cu-doped Porous Metal OxidesJacob A. Barrett10. Heterogeneous catalytic ethanol transformation into chemicals: some Brazilian contributionsGustavo Metzker, Jorge Andrés Mora Vargas and Mauricio Boscolo