An Experimental Study on Thermal Catalytic Decomposition of Inulin to 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural and Levulinic Acid and Effect of C6 on Furfural During Decomposition Process

Abstract

The attractive biobased platform chemicals, 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and Levulinic Acid (LA), are commonly produced by the conversion of monomeric sugars. However, a polymeric sugar such as inulin shows promising. This work reports the study on the thermal catalytic decomposition of inulin to HMF and LA. This work also investigated the effect of C6 on furfural during the process. The decomposition reactions were conducted in a batch reactor in a temperature (153-187)oC, an inulin loading (0.03- 0.12) g/mL and reaction times (18 -74) minutes using a central composite experimental design. Furthermore, to study the effect of fructose on furfural, some additional experiments were also performed in the batch system. The decomposition process gained 35 wt% yield of HMF and 13 wt % yield of LA. The HMF model was statistically formulated and a good fit between the experimental data and model was shown. The fructose particularly plays a role in furfural disappearance during the process.