Journal
INDUSTRIAL & ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY RESEARCH
Volume 53, Issue 29, Pages 11611-11621Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/ie501811x
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Funding
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan [25249109]
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [25249109] Funding Source: KAKEN
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Levulinic acid is one of the top value-added chemicals. It can be obtained through the hydrolysis of some types of saccharides such as glucose, the constituent unit of cellulose. Cellulose is the most abundant natural resource on this planet; however, its rigid structure prevents the easy utilization of cellulose. In this study, an efficient method for the conversion of cellulose to levulinic acid was sought by reforming the structure of cellulose through several types of pretreatment. Pretreatment with highly concentrated acid was found to enhance the conversion efficiency of the subsequent acidic hydrothermal treatment. Through pretreatment with highly concentrated acid at 50 degrees C and acidic hydrothermal treatment in the range of 200-210 degrees C, cellulose was converted into levulinic acid by 40.1 C-% (48.2 mol %) and 49.2 C-% (59.1 mol %) when phosphoric acid and hydrochloric acid, respectively, were used as the reagent. When ionic liquid was used as the reagent for pretreatment, 60.7 C-% (72.9 mol %) of cellulose was successfully converted into levulinic acid. In addition, the key factors for the conversion were clarified to be the decrease of crystallinity; the solubilization of cellulose; and in the case of treatment using ionic liquid, an appropriate interaction between the ionic liquid and cellulose.
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