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Abstract

Biomass conversion to transportation fuels and chemicals is a growing field of research due to the depletion of fossil fuels feedstock. New catalysts, optimized for carbohydrates conversion, need to be developed. In this context, basic heterogeneous catalysts will play a major role for dehydration, hydrolysis, (trans)esterification, aldol condensation, alkylation or isomerization reactions for example. In contrast to existing basic heterogeneous catalysts, MWCNTs-based catalysts are chemically stable (no leaching) and relatively easy to tailor on a nano- and macro-level (controlled porosity). Therefore, nitrogen-functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (N-MWCNTs) appear to be a promising basic catalyst and catalyst support [1,2]. Unfortunately, the nitrogen concentration, its location in/on the nanotube and the nature of the formed N-containing functional groups are difficult to control by common synthesis techniques like by catalytic chemical vapor deposition (CCVD) or by post-treatments [3]. In addition, it is still unclear which functional groups are required to reach high catalytic activities. Thus, we synthesized N-MWCNTs catalysts by grafting desired N-containing molecules on the MWCNTs’ surface. In order to avoid the drawbacks of the traditional SOCl2 route, a new procedure has been designed. The obtained catalysts have been tested in the transesterification of glyceryl tributyrate, as a model triglyceride for biodiesel synthesis