Combined Ultrasound/Microwave Chemocatalytic Method for Selective Conversion of Cellulose into Lactic Acid

Cellulose is the main component of lignocellulosic biomass. Its direct chemocatalytic conversion into lactic acid (LA), a powerful biobased chemical platform, represents an important, and more easily scalable alternative to the fermentative way. In this paper, we present the selective hydrothermal c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2019-12, Vol.9 (1), p.18858-8, Article 18858
Main Authors: Tallarico, Sofia, Costanzo, Paola, Bonacci, Sonia, Macario, Anastasia, Di Gioia, Maria Luisa, Nardi, Monica, Procopio, Antonio, Oliverio, Manuela
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/638/224
704/172/169
Cellulose
Humanities and Social Sciences
Irradiation
Lactic acid
Low temperature
multidisciplinary
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Silica
Sugar
Ultrasound
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Summary:Cellulose is the main component of lignocellulosic biomass. Its direct chemocatalytic conversion into lactic acid (LA), a powerful biobased chemical platform, represents an important, and more easily scalable alternative to the fermentative way. In this paper, we present the selective hydrothermal conversion of cellulose and simple sugars into LA, under mild reaction conditions in presence of ErCl 3 grafted on the mesoporous silica (MCM-41) surface. High yields and selectivity were obtained for the conversion of sugars under microwave (MW) irradiation at a relatively low temperature (200 °C) and short reaction times (10 min) under microwave (MW) irradiation. Ultrasounds (US) pre-treatment was investigated to reduce the cellulose crystallinity, before the MW-assisted conversion, providing LA with a yield of 64% within 90 min at 220 °C below the subcritical water conditions with increased operational safety. We finally discuss the scalability of the process and the recyclability of the catalyst.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-019-55487-y