One-pot Butyl Levulinate Production from Fructose and 1-Butanol

Nowadays fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas provide more than three quarters of the world`s energy. They are also used to produce the most common transportation fuels. In addition over 96% of chemicals containing carbon, used in our society, derive from petroleum. Among all the possibilities, biomass, such as wood waste, aquatic plant, agricultural crops, municipal and animal wastes, has been recognized as the most promising candidate to replace the fossil resources. Biomass, especially lignocellulose type, represents a renewable, plentiful and cheap material for the industrial production, not only in the energy field but also as feedstock for the manufacture of chemicals, solvent and materials, expecting also environmental benefits. In this context, alkyls levulinates are a class of compounds that are widely studied, primarily as additives for diesel but also for their use as aromas, fragrances and green solvents. This work proposes the study of the reaction between fructose and 1-butanol to produce butyl levulinate using as catalyst ionic acid-exchange resins. In particular the determination of the behavior of the catalyst, according to the reaction conditions used such as feed composition and temperature, and therefore the achievement of a greater selectivity to butyl levulinate and lower production of by-products such as formic acid, butyl formate and humins. Results shows that decreasing the amount of water the selectivity to the main product, butyl levulinate, increases and the formation of by-products such as humins, formic acid and butyl formate decreases. In addition, rising the temperature, the reaction rate increases, leading to higher selectivity to butyl levulinate and the reduction of by-products. The best conditions to obtain the selectivity to butyl levulinate up to 59%, is working at 130°C, with no water, Ratio Fru/BuOH (mol/mol) equal to 0,0165 and Rcat(wt/wt) equal to 0.016.