The improvement of processes that utilize renewable feedstocks, such as bioethanol, to
produce chemicals ordinarily derived from nonrenewable fossil carbon feedstocks is
paramount to creating an environmentally sustainable chemical and fuel industry. Catalytic
conversion of ethanol via the Guerbet condensation has the potential to serve as a
renewable source of chemicals and/or fuel additives from biorefineries. In this contribution,
we demonstrate that a single exposure to soluble chloride leads to marked selectivity …

Improvement of processes that utilize renewable feedstocks to produce chemicals ordinarily
derived from fossil carbon feedstocks is paramount to creating environmentally sustainable
chemical and fuel industries. Catalytic conversion of biorefinery-derived ethanol via the
Guerbet condensation has the potential to serve such a purpose. In this contribution, we
demonstrate marked selectivity changes in the ethanol condensation over a copper-doped
porous metal oxide catalyst upon a single exposure to ppm quantities of a soluble chloride …