2019 AIChE Annual Meeting

(682f) Aqueous Oxidation of Xylose to Xylonic Acid over Synergistic PtCu Catalysts Using Molecular O2

Authors

Ding, J. - Presenter, State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum
Yan, H., State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao, China
Liu, M., State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao, China
Wang, J., China University of Petroleum
Jin, X., State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum
Xia, Q., State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum
Carboxylic acids are important industrial chemicals for a variety of different everyday products.[1] Catalytic conversion of sugars to value-added acids provides an alternative route to fossil-based products. Xylonic acid ($ 562/kg), produced from xylose ($ 4.17/kg), has been identified as one of the top 30 high-value chemicals for biomass conversion.[2] It has been reported as the substrate for biosynthesis of 1,2,4-butanetriol. Xylonic acid has been widely used in chemical industry as an important building block.[3] It has wide applications in food, agriculture, pharmaceutical, and architecture. Biological production of xylonic has been extensively studied by oxidation of xylose with microbial. However, the main challenges are the costs of pretreatment of the biomass to obtain fermentative sugars, as well as separation and purification of the xylonic acid. Recently, aqueous oxidation of xylose to xylonic acid was reported over monometallic Pt catalyst using molecular O2.[4] The correlation of catalyst structures, including particle size, surface composition and metal-support interaction, with catalytic activity and selectivity has yet to be fully studied in this area.

In this paper, we report a series of ZrO2 supported monometallic Pt and bimetallic PtCu catalysts for effective oxidation of xylose to xylonic acid. The preliminary results clearly suggest bimetallic catalysts show promising performances (X ~ 70%) compared with monometallic ones (X ~ 50%) at 353 K. Pt/Cu ratios were also modified to further understand how catalyst formulation affect xylonic acid yield. The experimental results show that PtCu0.5/ZrO2 catalyst exhibits optimal conversion compared with other PtCu/ZrO2 catalysts at temperature of 353K. In addition, the influence of metal-metal and metal-support interaction on catalyst performances will also be studied and discussed in our presentation. This study is useful in high value-added applications of xylose and understanding the mechanism of the oxidation of xylose.

Reference

[1] Werpy, T.; Petersen, G.; Aden, A. U.S. Department of Energy. 2004.

[2] Mehtiö, T.; Toivari, M.; Wiebe, M. G. Critical Reviews in Biothchnology. 2016, 36(5): 904-916.

[3] Ge, X.; Chang, C.; Zhang, L. Advances in Bioenergy. 2018, 3: 161-213.

[4] Tathod, A.; Kane, T.; Sanil, E. S. Journal of Molecular Catalysis A: Chemical. 2014, 388: 90-99.

[5] Jin, X.; Zhao, M.; Shen, J. Journal of catalysis. 2015, 330: 323-329.