Pyruvic acid is a value-added chemical with various uses in medical, biochemical, food, and health care industry. At present, the main methods of producing pyruvic acid are chemical synthesis from tartaric acid, enzymatic and microbial fermentation preparation of carbohydrates. Compared with above methods, the preparation of pyruvic acid from lactic acid has fewer impurities and lower operation difficulty. With the progress of the research on the production of lactic acid from cellulose and other biomass, the economy and sustainability of this path have also been optimistic. In our previous work, Pt/CeO2 catalysts were found to show prominent selectivity among the screened metal-support matches in the conversion of lactic acid to pyruvic acid, with above 40% yield after optimization. CeO2 rods, polyhedrons, cubes, and octahedrons (remarked as CeO2-r, -p, -c, -o) were synthesized under different conditions. XPS and Raman spectra results show that the proportion of Ce4+ and binding energies of Pt/CeO2-c catalyst is highest compared with other samples, which indicate that obviously electron reconfiguration was generated at Pt-ceria interface via the formation of Pt-O-Ce linkage, leading to less charge density of Pt species in Pt/CeO2-c catalyst. Combined with the increased compression strain in Pt/CeO2-c showed by HR-TEM and a series of experiments for the shape dependent mechanism, the correlations between specific Pt/CeO2 morphologies and the performances of oxidative dehydrogenation of secondary hydroxyl in lactic acid have been revealed. This work fills the blank of synthesizing pyruvic acid from lactic acid catalyzed in alkali-free liquid phase and provides ideas for the design of catalysts in this system. The new paths of utilizing upstream biomass materials such as cellulose and glycerol have been exploited.

Synthesis of pyruvic acid from lactic acid catalyzed by Pt/CeO2 with different morphologies in alkali-free liquid phase

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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