Glucose isomerization to fructose is an important step in upgrading biomass to higher valued products. Tertiary amines can be highly selective catalysts for this reaction. In this work, tertiary amine analogues were functionalized on a mesoporous silica support to create heterogeneous catalytic materials. Experiments with homogeneous catalysts and silica revealed that silanols reduced the catalytic activity. Through using different strategies to limit amine-silanol interactions, it is determined that tuning parameters such as amine loading and alkyl linker length of the amine tether increases the fructose yield by a factor of four. Among the catalysts tested, the one found to be the best for glucose isomerization has a high amine loading (∼0.95 mmol g⁻¹) with a methyl linker. Catalyst reuse tests demonstrated that organosilane leaching reduced amine content, but the immobilized amines with the methyl linker retained greater catalytic activity than amines with propyl linkers.

葡萄糖异构化为果糖是将生物质升级为高价值产品的重要步骤。叔胺可以是该反应的高度选择性的催化剂。在这项工作中，叔胺类似物在介孔二氧化硅载体上被官能化以产生非均相催化材料。用均相催化剂和二氧化硅进行的实验表明，硅烷醇会降低催化活性。通过使用不同的策略来限制胺与硅烷醇的相互作用，可以确定诸如胺负载量和胺系链的烷基接头长度之类的调节参数将果糖收率提高了四倍。在测试的催化剂中，发现最适合葡萄糖异构化的催化剂具有较高的胺负载量（约0.95 mmol g ^-1）和一个甲基接头。催化剂的重用测试表明，有机硅烷浸提降低了胺含量，但具有甲基连接基的固定胺比具有丙基连接基的胺保留了更高的催化活性。