Recently, enormous researches have been reported on the production of high-value chemicals from the biomass resources. For example, up to now, 1,3-butadiene which is useful monomer for the synthetic rubber has been obtained by the steam cracking of paraffinic hydrocarbons and catalytic dehydrogenation of n-butane and n-butene, all of which are based on the petrochemical processes. In order to overcome the use of petroleum-derived feedstocks, we introduce a process for the selective production of 1,3-butadiene from glucose fermentation products. The glucose, a monosaccharide produced by plants, can be utilized after fermentation where main products are 2,3-butanediol, formic acid, and acetic acid. Here in, we propose model process which is the conversion of mixture of fermentation products to 1,3-butadiene. We proved that esterification occurred from the 2,3-butanediol, formic acid, and acetic acid to form di-esters. Sequentially, C-O cleavage was proceeded which resulted in the selective production of 1,3-butadiene. The catalytic esterification of 2,3-butanediol with the excess formic acid and acetic acid yielded 70 % and 85 % of di-esters, respectively, at a 100 % conversion of 2,3-butandeiol. The subsequent elimination of ester functional group in the pyrolysis without any catalyst enables C-O bond cleavage via E1 mechanism in organic chemistry with high selectivity. The merit of this combined process is the recovery of formic acid and acetic acid which permit the recycle of the reaction process. As a result, we could obtain as much as 70 % yield of 1,3-butadiene. The present methodology provides a basic chemistry for the production of a high-value chemical diene (1,3-butadiene) from a diol compound (2,3-butanediol) based on biomass which would be expected to have broad applicability.

Production of valuable chemicals (1,3-butadiene) from biomass-based resources alternative to the petroleum

248th National Meeting (2014)

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