Biochemicals production from Biomass

Vijay Bhooshan Kumar, Department of Chemistry, BINA, Department of Chemistry, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
Indra Neel Pulidindi, department of chemistry, Bar Ilan University, ramat gan, israel
Aharon Gedanken, department of chemistry, Bar Ilan University, ramat gan, israel

Drastic climatic changes and uncertainity in the supply of fossil fuels force researchers to investigate renewable feedstock for the production of biochemicals.  Major industrial chemical production processes use petrochemical based feedstock.  To make the chemical industry sustainable and environmentally friendly, efforts are on in developing biomass based chemical production process.  Glucose is a key chemical that could be produced from the hydrolysis of cellulose the major component of lignocellulosic biomass.

A microwave based fast process (15 min.) was developed for the conversion of a zero value potato peel waste (PPW) to glucose (79 wt.%  yield) using a solid acid catalyst (H₄SiW₁₂O₄₀ nH₂O, HSiW).  Microwave irradiation was found to depolymerize the starch component of the PPW faster than sonochemical or hydrothermal treatments.  In another study, an activated carbon based solid acid catalyst (20 wt.% HSiW/Activated carbon) was developed for the selective conversion of potato starch to glucose (94 wt.% yield) under hydrothermal reaction conditions.  The catalyst showed best performance in 5 consecutive runs without loss in activity. In addition to the studies on production of glucose from starch based wastes, efforts were also made for the successful conversion of glucose to levulinic acid using HCl-ZnBr₂ catalyst under microwave irradiation.  The salient features of the research findings will be discussed in the 80^th Annual meeting of Israel Chemical Society.