Optimization of Biomass Conversion to Levulinic Acid in Acidic Ionic Liquid and Upgrading of Levulinic Acid to Ethyl Lev
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Optimization of Biomass Conversion to Levulinic Acid in Acidic Ionic Liquid and Upgrading of Levulinic Acid to Ethyl Levulinate Nur Aainaa Syahirah Ramli 1 & Nor Aishah Saidina Amin 1
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016
Abstract Levulinic acid (LA) is a versatile platform chemical that can be derived from biomass as an alternative to fossil fuel resources. Herein, the optimization of LA production from glucose and oil palm fronds (OPF) catalyzed by an acidic ionic liquid; 1-sulfonic acid-3-methyl imidazolium tetrachloroferrate ([SMIM][FeCl4]) have been investigated. Response surface methodology based on Box-Behnken design was employed to optimize the LA yield and to examine the effect and interaction of reaction parameters on the LA production. The reaction parameters include reaction temperature, reaction time, feedstock loading, and catalyst loading. From the optimization study, the predicted mathematical models for LA production from glucose and OPF covered more than 90 % of the variability in the experimental data. At optimum conditions, 69.2 % of LA yield was obtained from glucose, while 24.8 % of LA yield was attained from OPF and registered 77.3 % of process efficiency. The recycled [SMIM][FeCl4] gave sufficient performance for five successive cycles. Furthermore, the optimum LA produced from glucose and OPF can be directly converted to ethyl levulinate through esterification over the [SMIM][FeCl4] catalyst. This study highlights the potential of [SMIM][FeCl4] for biorefinery processing of renewable feedstocks at mild process conditions. Keywords Levulinic acid . Acidic ionic liquid . Response surface methodology . Optimization . Oil palm fronds . Ethyl levulinate
* Nor Aishah Saidina Amin [email protected] 1
Chemical Reaction Engineering Group (CREG), Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, UTM, 81310 Johor Bahru, Malaysia
Introduction The depletion of fossil fuel resources is forcing a shift from fossil fuels to renewable sources for the production of energy, fuels, and chemicals [1]. One of the alternatives for fossil fuels is biomass, with bio-refineries which can be presented as the future replacement for the present-day petroleum refineries. Biomass is an abundant renewable carbon source that can help mitigate the emission of greenhouse gases. Among the various types of biomass, lignocellulosic biomass is attractive for energy production because it is a low-cost, abundantly available feedstock that does not compete with the food chain. Biomass has received significant attention for its potential as a starting material for bio-based chemical productions [2–4]. A diversity of process selections are available for the conversion of biomass to high added value products including acid hydrolysis, pyrolysis, and gasification [5]. Glucose is the monomer of cellulose, the main constituents of lignocellulosic biomass which can be further converted downstream to building block chemicals. One of the promising building block chemicals that can be derived from
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