Original Article:
Intensification of Processes for the Production of Ethyl Levulinate Using AlCl3·6H2O
Carlo Pastore, et al.
Energies, 2021, 14(5), 1273
10.3390/en14051273
In inorganic chemistry, chloride refers to a salt compound formed by combining negatively charged chloride ions with positively charged cations of other elements. Aluminum chloride (AlCl3) is a common inorganic chloride with a wide range of uses. In this work, the authors evaluated the potential of using aluminum chloride hexahydrate (AlCl3·6H2O) as a catalyst for the direct esterification of levulinic acid and ethanol.
Different from traditional acid catalysts, aluminum chloride hydrate combined the advantages of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis of direct esterification when used as a catalyst to catalyze the direct esterification of levulinic acid and ethanol. The catalyst is not only very active in promoting the esterification reaction under homogeneous catalysis, but also can be distributed in the aqueous phase so that it can be completely recovered and directly reused in a new reaction cycle.
Reaction Points
1. When using 1 mol% AlCl3·6H2O for catalysis, the final system remains homogeneous.
2. Further adding AlCl3·6H2O to the reaction mixture results in a biphasic system.
3. The results of the study confirm that the catalyst induces the separation of ethyl levulinate (EL) from the water produced by the reaction, as shown in Eq. The table shows the composition of the organic and aqueous phases obtained by using 3% and 5% AlCl3·6H2O in the direct esterification.
Chemicals Related in the Paper:
| Catalog Number | Product Name | Structure | CAS Number | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACM10124273 | Aluminum chloride hydrate |  |
10124-27-3 | Price |
| ACM10284647 | Aluminum chloride dihydroxide |  |
10284-64-7 | Price |
| ACM3495543 | Aluminum Chloride |  |
3495-54-3 | Price |
