Sustainable production of methyl levulinate from biomass in ionic liquid-methanol system with biomass-based catalyst

The preparation of bifunctional solid-acid catalyst and production of methyl levulinate were performed synergistically based on the fractionation of wood residue. The hydrothermal hydrolysate of wood residue was utilized for catalyst preparation using template method with sulfonic group as the Bronsted acid site and Zr4+ as Lewis acid site. Cellulose material for methyl levulinate production was fractionated by the delignification of hydrothermal residue using deep eutectic solvent. In this study, yield of methyl levulinate reached 38.7% under the optimized experiment condition. Insight gained from this work suggests a sustainable strategy for methyl levulinate production using recyclable biomass-based catalyst in ionic liquid-methanol system.