Levulinic acid manufacture

Hydrobromic acid, although it shows marked advantages over other acids in the preparation of levulinic acid, is obviously too expensive for the manufacture of this material. Some improvement in the yield obtained with hydrochloric acid is effected, however, by adding a small amount of sodium bromide to the mixture. ... 

A. E. Staley Manufacturing Company s Grade A levulinic acid was used. 

The hexoses can also be converted directly to levulinic acid and formic acid on acid treatment without isolation of 2-hydroxymethylfurfural. Note that levulinic acid can be synthesized from both pentoses and hexoses, but is usually manufactured from cane sugar or starch by boiling with hydrochloric acid. A process for the manufacture of levulinic acid has also been developed for paper-mill sludge feedstocks (Fitzpatrick and Jarnefeld, 1996). 

Furfural is a commodity chemical with a present-day world market of over 250,000 tons per year. It is used primarily in the manufacture of furan resins, lubricating oils and textiles for leisure wear (30, 42). Furfural can be converted to the main product, levulinic acid, via hydrogenation to furfuryl alcohol in a... 

Levulinic acid can be manufactured by the acid treatment of starch or the C6-carbohydrates in lignocellulosic biomass via the hydration of hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), an intermediate in this reaction. A side product of this reaction is formic acid, which is produced in equimolar amounts. It is also possible to produce levulinic acid from the five carbon carbohydrates in hemicellulose (eg, xylose, arabinose) by the addition of a reduction step (via furfuryl alcohol) subsequent to the acid treatment. Levulinic acid has been endorsed as a significant biorefinery building block due to its high yield from six carbon carbohydrates (Bozell and Petersen, 2010). Levulinic acid contains two reactive functional groups that permit a great number of synthetic transformations. 

The reaction is used for manufacturing - ricinenic acid, - alkyloxazolines, - furfural, hydroxymethyl furfural, - levulinic acid, fatty acid anhydrides, - caramel color, -+dextrins and - levoglu-cosans. 

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