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Glycerol Conversion to Lactic Acid with Unsupported Copper Salts and Bulk Cupric Oxide in Aqueous Alkali Media

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Abstract

Glycerol conversion to lactic acid (LA) was investigated in aqueous alkali over eight unsupported copper compounds (CuBr2, CuBr, CuCl2, CuCl, CuF2, Cu(NO3)2,CuO, and Cu2O) for studying the effects of anion and valence. Powder X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy measurements indicated that these copper compounds were reduced to metallic copper with different morphologies. Divalent copper compounds exhibited much better performances than the corresponding univalent species, ascribed to their greater reduction heat and higher local reaction temperature. Divalent copper species activity, ionic radius, and the reported reduction potential decreased in the same order: bromide > chloride > floride ≫ nitrate. With increasing reaction temperature, catalyst amount, NaOH concentration and reaction time, glycerol conversion, and LA selectivity increased (due to by-product conversions to LA). Kinetic studies indicated that glycerol disappearance rate was first-order with respect to its concentration. CuBr2 had greater activation energy and therefore exhibited better performance than CuO when reaction temperature was greater than 155 °C. At 185 °C, CuBr2 reached 95.7% lactic acid yield and 98.65% glycerol conversion.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Chia-Hsin Hsu who obtained the H-NMR data.

Funding

The authors received financial support from ROC Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST 104-2221-E-029-023).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Tunghai University, Taichung, Taiwan, Republic of China

    Kuo-Tseng Li & Hsin-Huey Li

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  1. Kuo-Tseng Li
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  2. Hsin-Huey Li
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Correspondence to Kuo-Tseng Li.

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Li, KT., Li, HH. Glycerol Conversion to Lactic Acid with Unsupported Copper Salts and Bulk Cupric Oxide in Aqueous Alkali Media. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 191, 125–134 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-020-03237-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-020-03237-6

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