Many studies have been done to hydrolyze cellulose to glucose with enzymes. However, previous methods have many disadvantages which can possibly be overcome by applications of solid catalysts.
Prof. FANG Zhen and his colleagues of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) synthesizedweakly solid catalyst CaFe2O4 and used it to catalyze cellulose hydrolysis to glucose at 423 K.
In their study, the ionic liquid (IL) [AMIM]Cl (1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride) was used for cellulose pretreatment to reduce the crystallinity and to increase the surface area of cellulose. The IL was separated from the pretreated cellulose and reused. The pretreated cellulose was hydrolyzed in the presence of the solid catalyst (CaFe2O4) synthesized in this work. The activity of the catalyst was determined after several reaction cycles.
The catalyst was recovered and reused four times and retained high activity and selectivity for glucose. [AMIM]Cl pretreated cellulose was easily hydrolyzed and the IL can be separated and reused.The researchers thus concluded that CaFe2O4 is a catalyst to effectively and selectively hydrolyze [AMIM]Cl pretreated cellulose to glucose.
The study entitled “Hydrolysis of cellulose to glucose at the low temperature of 423 K with CaFe2O4-based solid catalyst” has been published in Bioresource Technology, 124: 440-445, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2012.08.025
