Xylitol polymerization

Xylitol is a specialty chemical with the effects of extreme cooling, caries prevention and safety for diabetes, which are beneficial for manufacturing foods and mouth-care products. As a platform chemical, it also can be converted to various compounds for polymer synthesis and directly polymerized for production of unsaturated polyester resin (Werpy and Petersen, 2004). Danisco (currently part of Dupont Co.) is the largest xylitol producer, and many companies in China and South America (Brazil) manufacture xylitol commercially. The global market of xylitol is estimated to be more than 125,000 tons per year, with 4.5-5.5/kg for bulk purchase and 20/kg in supermarket (da Silva and Chandel, 2012). Xylitol has a 12% share of the total polyols market with growth estimated to increase threefold (da Silva and Chandel, 2012). The xylitol market continues to increase worldwide due to an enhancement in health consciousness and chewing gum market, and new application development as a chemical feedstock. 

Xylitol reacted with boric acid under reduced pressure to give mixtures of boric esters and polymeric xylitol-borate complexes, and a cryoscopic study of the borate complexes formed by pentaerythritol has been reported. N.m.r. spectroscopic studies have confirmed that borax complexes with HO-1 and -2 and with HO-3, -5, and -6 of D-glucose in the a-furanose form to give bidentate and terdentate complexes, respectively. Only those D-glucobioses that are (1 3)- or (1 6)-linked formed complexes with borax. 

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