Friday, October 20, 2006
Ground Foyer ( Houston Westchase Marriott Hotel)
316

DFT study of the reaction mechanism of Furfural bromination

La Toya Williams, Joseph Ifokwe, and Huajun Fan. Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View, TX

Furfural is the only few renewable raw materials that can substitute petroleum raw material in industries, and is readily available from agricultural by-products such as saw dust, oats and bran. Experimental work shows there are multiple products from this reaction and the reaction mechanism is unknown currently. One postulation is that this reaction involves radical mechanism. Therefore, one part of our research has been focused on mapping the energy profile, particularly locating the transition state of the bromination reaction of furfural. In this study, we will utilize Density Functional Theory to investigate the possible reaction pathway and energetic involved in the reaction, identify the possible transition state geometry and feasible activation energy for a bromination reaction of Furfural.