Catalytic Conversion of Lignocellulosic Biomass into fine chemicals and their Upgradation
Komal Kumar (Prof. Sreedevi Upadhyayula)
09th August 2017, Wednesday, 04:30‐05:00 pm (25+5 mins), ChE Seminar hall,
Rise in global warming and depletion in fossil resources necessitates the utilization of an alternative source for fuel and chemical production. Since the beginning of 21st century there is an exponential growth in research trends directed towards the production of green and sustainable energy from bio-renewable resources. Biomass from agriwastes is a promising energy source to overcome the challenges associated with sustainable energy consumption. In this regard, 12 platform chemicals include levulinic acid have been identified by US department of energy, which have potential to serve as feed stock for various applications in petroleum, petrochemical and chemical industries. In this work, levulinic acid was chosen as the platform chemical that can be utilized to produce a number of bio-chemicals including succinic acid, resins, polymers, pharmaceuticals, flavoring agents, solvents, plasticizers and bio fuels/oxygenated fuel derivatives. Hexose and pentose are the two most important sugars in biomass which can be catalytically converted to levulinic acid through both homogeneous as well as heterogeneous processes. In this work homogeneous catalytic process including acid catalyst (Inorganic mineral acids, Lewis acid, acidic ionic liquids) was investigated for the effective conversion of hexose sugars and selective levulinic acid product formation. Conversion of the sugars required Lewis acidity for the isomerization of hexose sugar to fructose and Bronsted acidity for the conversion of intermediate into levulinic acid. High conversion of the hexose sugar and higher selectivity to the levulinic acid was obtained using an ionic liquid as a catalyst and Lewis acid as a co-catalyst. This approach offers significant improvement for the production of levulinic acid from biomass with ease in the product separation and recovery of the catalyst. It also provides an environmentally sustainable route to biomass utilization.