Conversion of carbohydrates biomass into levulinate esters using heterogeneous catalysts

Lincai Peng, Lu Lin, Hui Li and Qiulin Yang

Applied Energy, 2011, vol. 88, issue 12, 4590-4596

Abstract: The catalytic performances of common solid acids (ZSM-5(25), ZSM-5(36), NaY, H-mordenite, Zr3(PO4)4, SO42-/ZrO2, SO42-/TiO2, and TiO2) for the conversion of carbohydrates such as glucose to methyl levulinate in near-critical methanol were investigated to develop an environmentally benign catalyst with high activity. Among these catalysts employed, sulfated metal oxides (especially SO42-/TiO2) were found to be a type of potential catalysts for prospective utilization, which showed remarkably high selectivity and yield of methyl levulinate and had negligible undesired dimethyl ether formation from the dehydration of methanol. With SO42-/TiO2 as the catalyst, methyl levulinate in ca. 43, 33 and 59mol% yields could be obtained from sucrose, glucose and fructose, respectively, at 473K for 2h reaction time with a catalyst loading of 2.5wt.%. The heterogeneous catalyst (SO42-/TiO2) was easily recovered by filtration and exhibited good catalytic activities after calcination in five cycles of reusing. The surface structure and acidity variations of the fresh and recycled SO42-/TiO2 catalysts after calcination were characterized by XRD and NH3-TPD techniques. The results indicate that the catalyst crystallization structure was preserved after multiple cycles, the acid amount and acid strength of the catalyst reduced gradually as the increasing of recycling times.

Keywords: Carbohydrates; Catalysis; Methyl levulinate; Heterogeneous catalyst; SO42-/TiO2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626191100359X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:88:y:2011:i:12:p:4590-4596

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2011.05.049

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().