Production of lactic acid from cellulose using solid catalyst

Abstract

Lactic acid (LA), one of the important biomass derived platform chemicals, has been used in food and chemical industries, especially in biodegradable polymer as polylactic acid (PLA). The aim of this work is to study the one-pot production of LA from cellulose by using different solid catalysts. The reaction was conducted in a high pressure batch reactor and the catalyst used in this study were ZrO 2 and Al 2 O 3 . The reaction was carried out at temperature of 200 o C for 6 hr. and under nitrogen pressure of 1 MP. It was found that the production yield of LA were 8.02% and 6.63%, when the ZrO 2 and Al 2 O 3 catalysts were used respectively. The result indicated that the ZrO 2 may effect on the LA production because of the acid and base sites of the ZrO 2 . Therefore, the reaction pathways for conversion of cellulose into lactic acid have been investigated, and developed the new conditions to achieve the higher yield.