Dr Jorge Beltramini
Senior Research Fellow
ARC Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials
Level 5
AIBN Building No. 75
Corner College and Cooper Roads,
The University of Queensland
St Lucia Qld 4072
p: 61 7 3346 3803
f
: 61 7 3365 6074
e: jorgeb@uq.edu.au
Research focus
Dr Jorge Beltramini leads the Clean Energy and Green Chemistry Group at the Centre. Their primary areas of research interest includes the synthesis, manipulation, and the physical, chemical and catalytic characterisation of new nanomaterials for natural gas, coal, and biomass conversion into valuable chemicals, transportation fuels, clean hydrogen production; reformulation of heavy residues, waste plastic degradation into fuels and heterogenisation of homogeneous catalysis for fine chemicals production.
Brief bio
Dr Jorge Beltramini is a Senior Research Fellow with more than 25 years of experience in the main areas of Solid State Catalysis, Surface Characterisation, Material Science, Reactor Design and Modelling. He is a recognised authority in the field of catalysis sciences as testified by more than 130 scientific and technical papers delivered at international forums and published in internationally refereed journals. His present research interests include the development of new nanoporous siliceous and non-siliceous materials and their functionalisation to be used as catalysts for new sustainable green chemical technologies as well as innovative catalytic membrane reactors.
Current projects
Recent and ongoing projects include -
- Novel metal supported mesoporous materials for liquid phase reforming of sugar solutions into hydrogen.
- Catalytic deoxygenation and/or decarboxylation of fresh/used vegetable oils to diesel range hydrocarbons
- Catalytic synthesis of ethanol and higher alcohols from biogas/stranded gas, natural gas
- Glycerol conversion into commodity chemicals using well-designed functional metal supported mesoporous catalysts
- Direct catalytic hydrolysis of cellulose to sugar alcohols and fuels using metal supported on functionalised sulfonic mesoporous catalysts
- Catalytic conversion of carbohydrates to key platform chemicals using novel metal supported mesoporous materials
- Integrated catalytic membrane reactor for hydrogen production and purification from oil-based liquid petroleum fuels
- Hydrogen production from biomass using novel membrane gasification reactor
Collaborations
Saudi Aramco Oil Company, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
Bio-Australia Pty Ltd, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
National Centre for Catalysis Research, IIT Madras, India
Advanced Materials and Catalytic Conversion for Renewable Feedstock Research Group, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, P.R. China
Selected publications
Williams, T., Beltramini, J.N. and Lu, G., Effect of the preparation technique on the catalytic properties of mesoporous V-HMS for the oxidation of toluene, Journal of Microporous and Mesoporous Materials, 88, 91, (2006)
Battersby, S., Werneck Teixeira, P., Beltramini, J., Duke, M., Rudolph, V. and da Costa, J., An analysis of the Peclet and Damkohler numbers for dehydrogenation reactions using molecular sieve silica (MSS) membrane reactors, Catalysis Today, 116, 1, (30), 12, (2006).
Beltramini, J. Catalytic conversion of municipal waste plastic into gasoline-range products over mesoporous materials, Journal of Particuology, 4(2), 80, (2006).
Tanksale, A., Wong, Y., Beltramini, J. and Lu, M., Hydrogen generation from liquid phase catalytic reforming of sugar solutions using metal-supported catalysts, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 32 (6), 717-724 (2007).
Zhou, CH, J. Beltramini, Y.X. Fan and G. Q. Lu, Chemoselective catalytic conversion of glycerol as a biorenewable source of valuable commodity chemicals, The Royal Chemical Society Reviews, 37, 527, (2008).
Adebajo, M., J. Beltramini, M. Lu, J. Da Costa, M. Andel-Jawad, S. Katikaneni, A. Qathani and T. Pham, Catalytic membrane reactor for hydrogen production from liquid petroleum fuels: bench scale studies, SA Journal of Technology,35, (2008).
Professional associations
Institution of Engineers Australia
Chemical Engineers College, Australia
Catalysis Society
International Mesostructured Material Association
Australian Research Nanotechnology Network
Currents student projects
- Hydrogen production from liquid phase reforming of sugars and carbohydrates.
- Deoxygenation/decarbonilation and hydrogenation of fatty acids into gasoline and diesel range hydrocarbons.
- Syngas conversion into ethanol and mixed alcohols
- Cellulose conversion into sugar alcohols
Student projects available
Development of innovative catalysts for biomass conversion to liquid hydrocarbons (BTL)
Catalysts for direct synthesis of di-methyl ether (DEE) from syngas
Catalytic conversion of carbohydrates to fine chemicals
Catalytic oxidation of glycerol