Renewable energies such as solar power, wind power and biomass are anticipated to be stable and harmless domestic energy sources. Biodiesel is derived from biomass, predominantly from oilseed plants, and is mainly comprised of fatty acid esters. Some of esters could be used as bio-based liquid fuels because the esters have physical properties that resemble those of diesel fuel. Therefore, biodiesel is expected to be major alternative transportation fuels. Cellulose is one of sustainable products from biomass and has the potential to produce liquid ester compounds of levulinates (levulinic acid esters) since it can be transformed into levulinic acid. Thus, cellulose is likely converted into biodiesel. Authors focus on the direct production of levulinic acid mono alcohol esters using cellulose as the starting material. Authors had reported the preparation of butyl levulinate through the acid catalysed solvolysis of cellulose powder using sulfuric acid as a catalyst and 1-butanol in one step reaction system under atmospheric pressure. In this paper, we attempted to prepare butyl levulinate from the acid solvolysis of cellulose powder employing p-toluenesulfonic acid monohydrate as a catalyst. It is one of aromatic sulfonic acids and is soluble in most organic solvents. The presence of p-toluenesulfonic acid monohydrate as a catalyst provides organic synthesis. The result revealed that butyl levulinate was produced up to 70% of the theoretical yield while the yield of butyl levulinate using sulfuric acid was 60%, which indicated that p-toluenesulfonic acid monohydrate is more suitable as a catalyst in our solvolysis process. Moreover, these high yields suggested that our simple solvolysis process using alcoholic reaction media has high potential for conversion of cellulosic biomass into butyl levulinate.

Preparation of butyl levulinate through the acid catalysed solvolysis of cellulose using a single reaction process

249th National Meeting (2015)

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