Abstract
Levulinic acid (LA) has been highlighted as one of the most promising platform chemicals, providing a wide range of possible derivatizations to value-added chemicals as the ethyl levulinate obtained through an acid catalyzed esterification reaction with ethanol that has found application in the bio-fuel market. Being a reversible reaction, the main drawback is the production of water that does not allow full conversion of levulinic acid. The aim of this work was to prove that the chromatographic reactor technology, in which the solid material of the packed bed acts both as stationary phase and catalyst, is surely a valid option to overcome such an issue by overcoming the thermodynamic equilibrium. The experiments were conducted in a fixed-bed chromatographic reactor, packed with Dowex 50WX-8 as ion exchange resin. Different operational conditions were varied (e.g., temperature and flow rate), pulsing levulinic acid to the ethanol stream, to investigate the main effects on the final conversion and separation efficiency of the system. The effects were described qualitatively, demonstrating that working at sufficiently low flow rates, LA was completely converted, while at moderate flow rates, only a partial conversion was achieved. The system worked properly even at room temperature (303 K), where LA was completely converted, an encouraging result as esterification reactions are normally performed at higher temperatures.
Highlights
Since Dowex 50WX-8 showed a good performance in similar systems, and as no applications of this concept appeared in the literature for the ethyl levulinate synthesis from Levulinic acid (LA), this work aimed to fill this gap, aiming to investigate how the different operation conditions affect the final conversion of the system
The value of α was calculated as the average value of all the swelling coefficients determined during the take-up tests, with this being α = 51.1 ± 5.6%
6 M6injections at the same temperature andand flow raterate values demonstrated thatthat at at Minjections at the same temperature flow values demonstrated lower flow rates was completely converted to injections at the same temperature and flow rate values demonstrated that at lower flow rates LA was completely converted to Ethyl levulinate (EL)
Summary
Levulinic acid (LA), known as 4-oxopentanoic acid or γ-ketovaleric acid, is a highly versatile molecule that can be obtained from lignocellulosic biomass. The great interest around LA is due to its structure, composed of two high functionality groups (keto- and carboxylic- group) that furnish a wide range of possible derivatizations to valueadded chemicals [1]. For all of these reasons, LA has been highlighted as one of the most promising platform chemicals, after screening approximately 300 substances [2]. Among the large number of utilizable chemicals derived from LA, levulinate esters potentially have the largest markets, especially from a biofuel perspective.
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