Efficient synthesis of alkyl levulinates fuel additives using sulfonic acid functionalized polystyrene coated coal fly ash catalyst

Yi Tian; Xiaoting Zhu; Shuolin Zhou; Wenguang Zhao; Qiong Xu; Xianxiang Liu

doi:10.1016/j.jobab.2023.01.003

Volume 8 Issue 2

May 2023

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Article Navigation > Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts > 2023 > 8(2): 198-213

Yi Tian, Xiaoting Zhu, Shuolin Zhou, Wenguang Zhao, Qiong Xu, Xianxiang Liu. Efficient synthesis of alkyl levulinates fuel additives using sulfonic acid functionalized polystyrene coated coal fly ash catalyst[J]. Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts, 2023, 8(2): 198-213. doi: 10.1016/j.jobab.2023.01.003

Citation:

Yi Tian, Xiaoting Zhu, Shuolin Zhou, Wenguang Zhao, Qiong Xu, Xianxiang Liu. Efficient synthesis of alkyl levulinates fuel additives using sulfonic acid functionalized polystyrene coated coal fly ash catalyst[J]. Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts, 2023, 8(2): 198-213. doi: 10.1016/j.jobab.2023.01.003

Citation:

Yi Tian, Xiaoting Zhu, Shuolin Zhou, Wenguang Zhao, Qiong Xu, Xianxiang Liu. Efficient synthesis of alkyl levulinates fuel additives using sulfonic acid functionalized polystyrene coated coal fly ash catalyst[J]. Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts, 2023, 8(2): 198-213. doi: 10.1016/j.jobab.2023.01.003

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Efficient synthesis of alkyl levulinates fuel additives using sulfonic acid functionalized polystyrene coated coal fly ash catalyst

doi: 10.1016/j.jobab.2023.01.003

a.
National & Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for New Petro-chemical Materials and Fine Utilization of Resources, Key Laboratory of the Assembly and Application of Organic Functional Molecules of Hunan Province, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, China
b.
Changsha Normal University, Changsha 410100, China
c.
Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 117585, Singapore

More Information

Corresponding author: E-mail address: slzhou1989@163.com (S. Zhou); E-mail address: lxx@hunnu.edu.cn (X. Liu)
Available Online: 2023-01-07
Publish Date: 2023-05-01

Abstract

Abstract

In this study, sulfonic acid functionalized polystyrene coated coal fly ash catalyst (CFA@PS-SO₃H) was designed and prepared by the post-synthesis method, which exhibited excellent catalytic performance for esterification of levulinic acid (LA) to afford alkyl levulinates. Four significant factors, including reaction time, catalyst dosage, alcohol-to-acid molar ratio and reaction temperature were evaluated systematically. Response surface methodology based on Box-Behnken design (BBD) was carried out to determine the optimal parameters. The maximum yield could reach 99.6% under the mild conditions. Furthermore, kinetics of the esterification reaction between levulinic acid and n-butanol were analyzed and the activation energies of the first and second step of esterification reaction were found to 52.18 and 59.81 kJ/mol, respectively. The CFA@PS-SO₃H also showed high catalytic activity for the esterification of levulinic acid with other linear alcohols, which made it a low cost, environmentally friendly and promising solid catalyst for the synthesis of alkyl levulinates.
- Coal fly ash,
- Alkyl levulinates,
- Catalysis,
- Esterification,
- Kinetic,
- Response surface methodology

Declaration of Competing Interest There are no conflicts to declare.
Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.jobab.2023.01.003.
Supplementary materials

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References(63)

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