Levulinic acid is a versatile compound derived today mainly from petrochemical manufacturing through the hydrolysis and hydrogenation of maleic anhydride of furfuryl alcohol. However, levulinic acid is one of the top platform chemicals obtainable from cellulosic biomass. It has potential uses in biofuels, pharmaceuticals, and biodegradable polymers. However conversion of cellulosic biomass to levulinic acid is complicated and not economically viable. Here a new solid acid catalyst consisting of poly(styrene sulfonic acid) chains was grafted to a ceramic membrane. The catalyst demonstrated exceptional catalytic activity, achieving an LA yield of 45% under the optimized catalysis conditions for conversion of cellulose. The reaction solvent was γ-valerolactone, a green solvent that can be obtained for levulinic acid. The catalyst showed very good stability maintaining more than 85% catalytic activity over repeated cycles. In addition an extraction process was developed to recover levulinic acid from γ-valerolactone. Here a high ionic strength aqueous phase consisting of 2M Na2CO3 was used to extract the levulinic acid. Finally levulinic acid was produce and recovered from corn fiber, a real biomass of commercial interest.
