The hydrolysis of cellulose and hemicellulose to monosaccharides will be one of the key steps in biorefineries. The product mixtures from hydrolysis reactions often contain significant amounts of water soluble oligosaccharides. These oligosaccharides can be converted into the desired monosaccharides using solid acid catalysts in a fixed bed reactor. The advantage of this strategy is that the catalyst can be easily separated from the reaction mixture, and the contact time between the reactant and the catalysts can be controlled to limit degradation reactions of glucose. In the present work, metal oxides and modified activated carbons are used as solid acid catalysts for the hydrolysis of cellobiose in a fixed bed reactor setup. Limited deactivation of carbon based catalysts occurs in the first hours on stream, but constant activity and selectivity is observed when the reaction is extended beyond this period. After excluding internal and external transport limitations, activation energies for hydrolysis of cellobiose and degradation of glucose are determined. Detailed physicochemical characterization is performed to identify key properties that determine the performance of different catalysts. Most importantly, the acidity of the catalysts is characterized by Boehm titration. Based on the results from the kinetic studies and characterization of the catalysts, structure-property relationships are obtained.

Solid acid catalyzed hydrolysis of cellobiose

247th National Meeting (2014)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.