Alkaline hydrothermal conversion of carbohydrate biomass into formic acid at mild temperatures

FUEL 59

Fangming Jin, fangming7385@hotmail.com1, Jun Yun1, Guangming Li1, Atsushi Kishita, kishita@mail.kankyo.tohoku.ac.jp2, Heiji Enomoto2, and Kazuyuki Tohji2. (1) School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China, (2) Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University, Aramaki aza Aoba 6-6-20, Aoba-ku, Sendai, 980-8579, Japan
A new method for the production of formic acid from carbohydrate biomass by an alkaline hydrothermal process is proposed. Glucose, a model compound of carbohydrate biomass, was oxidized with temperature varying from 200oC and 350oC, reaction time varying from 10 to 300 s and H2O2 supply varying from 0 to 150%, with and without alkali using a batch reactor. In the case of no-adding of alkali, the highest yield of formic acid was 24 %, which occurred at a temperature of 250 oC for reaction time of 60 s with 120 % oxygen supply. When adding alkali, the yield of formic acid increased greatly. An excellent formic acid yield of 75 % was achieved, which occurred at 250 oC for 60 s with 120 % oxygen supply and the KOH concentration of 1 M. This result should facilitate the study on the production of hydrogen from carbohydrate biomass via formic acid.
 

BioFuels: Renewable Liquid Fuels & Chemicals from Biomass
8:05 AM-12:10 PM, Monday, August 20, 2007 Boston Park Plaza -- Arlington Rm, Oral

Division of Fuel Chemistry

The 234th ACS National Meeting, Boston, MA, August 19-23, 2007