Production of hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) from glucosamine and glucosamine-rich renewable materials

I&EC 15

Tao Wu, twu2@utk.edu, Department of Food Science of Technology, University of Tennessee, 2509 River Drive, Room 203 McLeod Hall, Knoxville, TN 37996-4539 and Svetlana Zivanovic, lanaz@utk.edu, Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-4539.
Chitin is a structural polymer of arthropod exoskeletons and fungal cell walls and is considered as the second most abundant biomass on earth. However, it is extremely underutilized and ignored as a renewable resource. Chitin is easily deacetylated to chitosan and/or hydrolyzed to glucosamine. Our data showed that the yield of HMF from glucosamine exceeds 3 times levels produced from fructose. Additionally,significantly higher HMF concentrations were achieved in organic acids compared to hydrochloric acid. Contrary to the production of HMF from fructose that requires extremely harsh conditions (pH below 1), the maximum yield from glucosamine was accomplished at pH~4. We also found that addition of DMSO may suppress rehydration degradation of produced HMF and thus increased its yield. We believe that hydroxymethyl furfural and its derivate, levulinic acid, can be efficiently produced from glucosamine, which, in turn, can be easily obtained from crustacean shells and fungal biomass.
 

Feedstocks for the Future II: Renewables for the Production of Chemicals and Materials
8:30 AM-12:00 PM, Monday, August 20, 2007 Boston Park Plaza -- Clarendon Rm, Oral

Division of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry

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