Glauco Ferro Leal, a PhD student carrying out his research at the LNLS under supervision of Dr. Cristiane B. Rodella and Prof. Antonio Aprigio da Silva Curvelo, received the Professor Arikerne Sucupira Award in the V Meeting of the Brazilian School for Green Chemistry, given to the best poster presentation by a graduate student.

The awarded work is about the investigation into heterogeneous catalysis for obtaining Ethylene Glycol from the most abundant biomass in the planet: cellulose. Ethylene Glycol is widely used in chemical industries for producing synthetic fibers and PET bottles, and is normally obtained from fossil hydrocarbons. In this study, the use of a low-cost palladium-promoted tungsten carbide catalyst was explored in the hydrogenolysis of cellulose with Ethylene Glycol as the final product.

The V Meeting of the Brazilian School for Green Chemistry was organized by the Brazilian Bioethanol Science and Technology Laboratory (CTBE) and the Brazilian School for Green Chemistry of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and held at the CNPEM campus on October 19th and 20th, 2015.

Glauco Ferro Leal

Glauco Ferro Leal is a PhD student at the Chemistry Institute of the São Paulo University in São Carlos (IQSC-USP) under supervision of Prof. Antonio Aprigio da Silva Curvelo. At the LNLS, the research project is conducted under supervision of Dr. Cristiane B. Rodella. His doctoral research is also done in collaboration with CTBE and is related to the development of heterogeneous catalysts for the production, from renewable sources, of chemical products usually obtained from petroleum.

Professor Arikerne Sucupira Award

The Professor Arikerne Sucupira Award aims to incentivize students to develop Research and Development, and Educational activities in Green Chemistry, an area of chemistry dedicated to the design of chemical products and processes to reduce or eliminate the production of substances that are dangerous to human health and to the environment.