Institute of Bio- and Geosciences, Plant Sciences Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Wilhelm-Johnen-Straße, 52428, Jülich, Germany.
Institute of Technical and Macromolecular Chemistry (ITMC), RWTH Aachen University, Worringer Weg 1, 52074, Aachen, Germany.
ChemSusChem. 2021 Feb 5;14(3):909-916. doi: 10.1002/cssc.202002383. Epub 2020 Dec 10.
The conversion of lignocellulose into its building blocks and their further transformation into valuable platform chemicals (e. g., furfural) are key technologies to move towards the use of renewable resources. This paper explored the disentanglement of lignocellulose into hemicellulose-derived sugars, cellulose, and lignin in a biphasic solvent system (water/2-methyltetrahydrofuran) using phosphoric acid as recyclable catalyst. Integrated with the biomass fractionation, in a second step hemicellulose-derived sugars (mainly xylose) were converted to furfural, which was in situ extracted into 2-methyltetrahydrofuran with high selectivity (70 %) and yield (56 wt %). To further increase the economic feasibility of the process, a downstream and recycling strategy enabled recovery of phosphoric acid without loss of process efficiency over four consecutive cycles. This outlines a more efficient and sustainable use of phosphoric acid as catalyst, as its inherent costs can be significantly lowered.
将木质纤维素转化为其组成部分，并进一步将其转化为有价值的平台化学品（例如糠醛），是迈向可再生资源利用的关键技术。本文探索了在两相溶剂系统（水/2-甲基四氢呋喃）中使用磷酸作为可回收催化剂，将木质纤维素解缠为半纤维素衍生糖、纤维素和木质素。与生物质分级相结合，在第二步中，半纤维素衍生糖（主要是木糖）转化为糠醛，糠醛以高选择性（70%）和收率（56wt%）原位提取到 2-甲基四氢呋喃中。为了进一步提高该工艺的经济可行性，采用下游和回收策略，可以在不损失工艺效率的情况下，在连续四个循环中回收磷酸。这概述了一种更有效和可持续的使用磷酸作为催化剂的方法，因为其固有成本可以显著降低。
