Feedstock fumaric acid

Process Technology Evolution. Maleic anhydride was first commercially produced in the early 1930s by the vapor-phase oxidation of benzene [71-43-2]. The use of benzene as a feedstock for the production of maleic anhydride was dominant in the world market well into the 1980s. Several processes have been used for the production of maleic anhydride from benzene with the most common one from Scientific Design. Small amounts of maleic acid are produced as a by-product in production of phthaHc anhydride [85-44-9]. This can be converted to either maleic anhydride or fumaric acid. Benzene, although easily oxidized to maleic anhydride with high selectivity, is an inherently inefficient feedstock since two excess carbon atoms are present in the raw material. Various compounds have been evaluated as raw material substitutes for benzene in production of maleic anhydride. Fixed- and fluid-bed processes for production of maleic anhydride from the butenes present in mixed streams have been practiced commercially. None of these... 

Although the production of fumaric acid from either glucose, sucrose, starch, or molasses by fermentation using Rhizopus was in commercial operation during the 1940s, it was discontinued due to low productivity and the cheap source of petroleum-derived feedstock. 

Catalysts which can selectively activate the normally un-reactive paraffins have been developed in recent years. The production of maleic anhydride from butane over vanadium-phosphorous-oxide catalysts has received much attention (Eqn. 5), and is beginning to replace the more wasteful production of maleic anhydride from benzene (Eqn. 6) which is still the major feedstock. Maleic anhydride production from butene or butadiene is also possible (Eqn. 7), but cannot compete with the cheaper butane feed. Maleic anhydride is mainly used in the manufacture of unsaturated polyester resins, fumaric acid manufacture, insecticides, and fungicides (Figure 5). ... 

Aspects determining the productivity of fumaric acid fermentation include the microbial strain used and its morphology, the use of a neutralizing agent, and the applied feedstock. 

Starch containing materials can also be used for the fumaric acid production, because R. arrhizus NRRL 2582 contains amylase that readily hydrolyzes starch (Rhodes et al. 1962). Moresi et al. 1991 used potato flour as feedstock for R. arrhizus and although fumaric acid was the main metabolic product, a volumetric productivity of only 0.35 gL" h" was achieved. Recently, lignocellulose hydrolysate was used with R. arrhizus DSM 5772 (Xu et al. 2010 Julio et al. 2011).ln all cases the performance of the fermentation was lower than with glucose, but might still be economically attractive because feedstock costs are important. 

While sulfosuccinates are currently not manufactured with fermentation-based carboxylic acids, it is reasonable that bio-based succinic, fumaric or maleic acid could be used as the four-carbon head group, replacing maleic anhydride. For these feedstocks to be successful, effective processes and catalysts for aqueous esterification [21] and sulfonation [22] of these carboxylic acids need to be better characterized. 

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