The exploitation of waste biomass to produce electricity, biofuels and chemicals can represent a renewable energy source and a safeguard for environment. Recently we have studied some wastes as wood sawdust, paper sludge, exhausted lemon peels, tobacco chops, coffee tofferaction wastes, olive tree pruning, which are economically relevant for our country. A new process for the complete and efficient acid-catalyzed exploitation of the three components (hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin) of the above wastes has been optimized. This process allows us to convert the aqueous biomass slurry to furfural (yield up to 10 wt % with respect to dry biomass) and levulinic acid (4-oxopentanoic acid, LA, yield up to 25 wt % with respect to dry biomass) using a very dilute acid and a temperature of 100-200 °C. When the acid-catalyzed reaction is carried out in ethanol slurry, ethyl levulinate (EL) is obtained (up to 22 wt % yield). The recovered lignin has been characterized by FT-IR, NMR and DSC: it resulted lignino-similar, with high content of functional groups and low molecular weight. These characteristics make this residue a valuable anti-oxidant and also a promising starting material for the synthesis of polymers.
Catalytic conversion of biomass to platform chemicals
RASPOLLI GALLETTI, ANNA MARIA;RIBECHINI, ERIKA;MODUGNO, FRANCESCA
2009-01-01
Abstract
The exploitation of waste biomass to produce electricity, biofuels and chemicals can represent a renewable energy source and a safeguard for environment. Recently we have studied some wastes as wood sawdust, paper sludge, exhausted lemon peels, tobacco chops, coffee tofferaction wastes, olive tree pruning, which are economically relevant for our country. A new process for the complete and efficient acid-catalyzed exploitation of the three components (hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin) of the above wastes has been optimized. This process allows us to convert the aqueous biomass slurry to furfural (yield up to 10 wt % with respect to dry biomass) and levulinic acid (4-oxopentanoic acid, LA, yield up to 25 wt % with respect to dry biomass) using a very dilute acid and a temperature of 100-200 °C. When the acid-catalyzed reaction is carried out in ethanol slurry, ethyl levulinate (EL) is obtained (up to 22 wt % yield). The recovered lignin has been characterized by FT-IR, NMR and DSC: it resulted lignino-similar, with high content of functional groups and low molecular weight. These characteristics make this residue a valuable anti-oxidant and also a promising starting material for the synthesis of polymers.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
