Physicochemical Properties for the Reaction Systems: Levulinic Acid, Its Esters, and γ-Valerolactone

The use of biomass, particularly, a second-generation one, as a renewable raw material is crucial to sustain the chemical industry. To favor the development of such processes, one needs to make a cost evaluation, which requires the knowledge of process thermodynamics and kinetics. In this paper, measurements of different physicochemical properties (viscosity, density, refractive index, and specific heat capacity) were done for the systems: hydrogenation of levulinic acid or its esters to gamma-valerolactone. From those physicochemical measurements, it was possible to extract the ones of the intermediates and perform a thermodynamic model assessment by using Aspen Plus. It was found that the Hysys Redlich-Kwong-Soave cubic equation of state and Benedict-Webb-Rubin-Starling virial equation of state are suitable to describe these chemical systems.