Raney Ni Catalysed Transfer Hydrogenation Of Levulinate Esters To γ-GVL At Room Temperature

Biomass is a renewable and abundant source of carbon that allows the production of viable and versatile fuels, chemicals and polymers. The gradual depletion of fossil fuel resources has stimulated people to search for chemicals and fuels from biomass. Various processes especially chemical transformation have been developed for the conversion of biomass and its derivatives into value-added platform molecules and biofuels such as polyol,furfural,5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), furfury alcohol (FAL),2-methyltetrahydrofuran (2-MTHF),levulinic acid (LA), ethyl levulinate (EL) and γ-valerolactone (γ-GVL). Among these biochemicals, γ-GVL is widely used because of its high stability, low volatility and low toxicity, and γ-GVL has been identified as the most renewable molecules which has been employed as a fuel additive, precursor for the production of alkanes,valuable chemicals and polymers. Up to now, various of catalysts systems and processes have been developed for the production of y-GVL from biomass, and for the conversion-GVL into fuels, chemicals and polymers.In the first chapter of this paper, we mainly introduce the concept of biomass and biomass conversion, describe the research overview of the preparation of raw fuel, chemicals, polymers from biomass, and also introduce the structure, properties, synthesis, applications of y-GVL in detail. Especially, the differences of the feedstocks including LA, levulinate esters and other feedstocks for the production of GVL are systematically summarized, as well as the catalytic systems including homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts for the hydrogenation of LA to GVL using H2gas or formic acid (FA) as hydrogen source conducted in vaporphase, liquid-phase, super critical CO2or biphasic systems are emphasized in order to find an efficient, green, economic and sustainable way for the production of GVL, and the progresses of GVL as fuel additive, solvent as well as converting GVL into fuels, chemicals, polymers are also described, give the suggestion of the future application trends of GVL.In the second chapter of this paper, we introduce the progress of the preparation of y-GVL from ethyl levulinate, laboratory reagents and equipment, experimental methods, and the experimental results, and finally to summarize, generalize the advantages and disadvantages of our methods. In summary, we reported a catalytic transfer hydrogenation process for the production of γ-GVL from EL over Raney Ni catalyst at room temperature, and secondary alcohols as hydrogen source. Further, a two step process for the production of γ-GVL from biomass derivatives was also reported.