Abstract
A mixture of hexafluoroisopropanol (HFIP) and water was used as a new and unknown monophasic reaction solvent for fructose dehydration in order to produce HMF. HFIP is a low-boiling fluorous alcohol (b.p. 58 °C). Hence, HFIP can be recovered cost efficiently by distillation. Different ion-exchange resins were screened for the HFIP/water system in batch experiments. The best results were obtained for acidic macroporous ion-exchange resins, and high HMF yields up to 70% were achieved. The effects of various reaction conditions like initial fructose concentration, catalyst concentration, water content in HFIP, temperature and influence of the catalyst particle size were evaluated. Up to 76% HMF yield was attained at optimized reaction conditions for high initial fructose concentration of 0.5 M (90 g/L). The ion-exchange resin can simply be recovered by filtration and reused several times. This reaction system with HFIP/water as solvent and the ion-exchange resin Lewatit K2420 as catalyst shows excellent performance for HMF synthesis.
Highlights
Diminishing fossil resources, growing world population and increasing importance of global warming make it necessary to find alternative sources for energy and chemicals
In this paper we present a monophasic reaction system with HFIP and water as reaction solvent and strong acidic ion-exchange resins as catalysts
Cation-exchange resins are known as suitable solid acid catalysts for HMF synthesis [1,16]
Summary
Diminishing fossil resources, growing world population and increasing importance of global warming make it necessary to find alternative sources for energy and chemicals. Biomass offers a promising alternative for a sustainable supply of energy and valuable chemicals. One product with great potential is furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA). Due to the structural similarity to terephthalic acid (TA), FDCA serves as possible alternative in the production of plastics. The PET market volume of 50 million t/a demonstrates the high potential of FDCA and the importance of HMF production. In the presence of water and acid the formed HMF is rehydrated and different condensation products are formed. Levulinic and formic acid in a subsequent rehydration reaction, as well as soluble and insoluble polymers (humins) in parallel condensation reactions, are generated (Scheme 1)
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