Ionic Liquids for Conversion of Biomass to Sugars or HMF Without Additional Catalysts

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By Green Car Congress on 04/05/2010 – 3:15 am PDT

Researchers at Colorado State University have shown that under relatively mild conditions (≤140 °C, 1 atm) and in the absence of added acid catalysts typically employed in biomass conversion, cellulose dissolved in certain ionic liquids (ILs) can convert into water-soluble reducing sugars in high total reducing sugar yield (up to 97%), or directly into the biomass platform chemical 5-hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF) in high conversion (up to 89%) when CrCl2 is added.

The results, they say, are broadly relevant to reactions involving the use of IL-H2O mixtures (as solvents, reactants, or catalysts), including, but not limited to, organic catalysis, electrochemistry, and biomass processing or conversion. A paper describing the work was published 10 March in the ACS journal Energy & Fuels.

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