Selective Acetaldehyde Production from Lactic Acid Using Acid Zeolites

MARIA EUGENIA SAD; CRISTINA L. PADRÓ; CARLOS APESTEGUIA

Denver

Congreso; 25th North American Catalysis Meeting; 2017

North American Catalysis Society

Acetaldehyde (AL) is widely used to produce α,β-unsaturated aldehydes, acetic acid, ethyl acetate and crotonaldehyde among others. Industrially is obtained from ethylene (Wacker process) and acetylene (hydration using mercury salts), but in the near future should be replaced for less environmentally harmful technologies and renewable raw materials such as ethanol, succinic acid or lactic acid Lactic acid (LA) is a versatile chemical that can be produced from renewable resources such as biomass. Since it is very reactive, it can participate in many reactions to form a variety of products (Figure 1). The aim of this work is to selectively obtain acetaldehyde from an aqueous solution of lactic acid via decarbonylation using zeolites. Although high yields towards decarbonylation products (ηAD+CO= 86-92%) have been reported at high temperature (653 K) on H4SiW12O40 supported on SBA-15 or CARIACT and aluminum sulfate [1,2]; there are some discrepancies about the role of acid sites on the reaction pathway.