Efficient and Selective Oxidation of D-Glucose into Gluconic acid under Low-Frequency Ultrasonic Irradiation

The production of gluconic acid from D-glucose represents an attractive target for industry. In this work, we propose an efficient, eco-friendly, and selective method to oxidize D-glucose with aqueous H2O2 in the presence of FeSO4 as a catalyst. The reaction was improved significantly under ultrasonic (US) activation, which led to excellent yields in only a few minutes. In addition, we determined that the reaction occurred through a sono-Fenton process by studying the production of hydroxyl radicals and optimizing the experimental conditions of the reaction. The energy consumption of the process was also investigated in this study.