Conversion of glucose to lactic acid using ordered mesoporous based supported ZrO2 catalyst

Abstract. Using the chemical catalytic approach, the conversion of glucose to lactic acid can be produced at high selectivity and most of the study focused on utilizing of catalyst. This present work discusses the conversion of glucose to lactic acid with the use of zeolite-based catalysts. For this purpose, synthetic SBA-15 was synthesized using the hydrothermal method at 100 oC for 2 days, dry at 100 oC for overnight, and calcined at 650 oC for 6h. The synthesized SBA undergo an alumination process with a Si/Al ratio of 25, dried at 60 oC for overnight and calcined at 550 oC for 6h followed by impregnation with 2 wt% of ZrO2, dried at 100 oC overnight and calcined at 550 oC for 6h. The catalysts were characterized for their physicochemical properties using XRD and N2 adsorption-desorption isotherm to evaluate the properties of catalyst to produce lactic acid. XRD diffraction shows the presence of the SBA-15 diffraction peak at a low angle. The N2 adsorption-desorption analysis shows a decrease in surface area and pores size after alumination and impregnation process. All catalysts were screened for the production of lactic acid from glucose using a high-pressure batch reactor at 150 oC in inert condition of nitrogen gas for 3h. the impregnated Zr into the Al-SBA-15 demonstrated the highest conversion (94.9%) and selectivity of lactic acid (38.4%) while SBA-15 and Al-SBA-15 shows no conversion was detected at 200 oc temperature for 3h under 5 bars of nitrogen gas. It shows that Zr/Al-SBA-15 catalyst are suitable to convert lactic acid from glucose feedstock.