Chinese Journal of Catalysis ›› 2014, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (5): 622-630.DOI: 10.1016/S1872-2067(14)60039-5

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Low-temperature oxidation of guaiacol to maleic acid over TS-1 catalyst in alkaline aqueous H2O2 solutions

Ji Su, Lisha Yang, Reed Nicholas Liu, Hongfei Lin   

  1. Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno 1664 N. Virginia St. M/S388, Reno, NV 89557, USA
  • Received:2014-01-21 Revised:2014-01-23 Online:2014-04-18 Published:2014-04-24

Abstract:

To mitigate the negative environmental impact of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission originated from the use of fossil fuels, the chemical world is switching to utilize renewable biomass resources. Co-producing value-added chemicals is important for an integrated biorefinery to improve economics of biofuels. Lignin derived compounds, e.g. guaiacol, are common by-products of fast pyrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass. In this paper, the feasibility of low-temperature selective oxidation of guaiacol to value-added dicarboxylic acids, e.g. maleic acid, was investigated using titanium silicalite/hydrogen peroxide (TS-1/H2O2) reaction system. Under the reaction conditions (80 ℃ and the initial pH = 13.3), the molar yields of maleic acid from guaiacol were approximately 20%-30%. The effects of catalyst amount, initial pH values, reaction time, and temperature on the yields of maleic acid were investigated. A possible reaction mechanism of TS-1 catalyzed aromatic ring opening was proposed.

Key words: Biomass, Lignin, Guaiacol, Oxidation, Maleic acid, TS-1, Hydrogen peroxide, Carboxylic acid