The sustainable production of succinic anhydride from renewable biomass

Xiaoqian Gao; Xinli Tong; Yi Zhang; Song Xue

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.107203

The sustainable production of succinic anhydride from renewable biomass

iScience. 2023 Jun 25;26(7):107203. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107203. eCollection 2023 Jul 21.

Authors

Xiaoqian Gao¹, Xinli Tong¹, Yi Zhang¹, Song Xue¹

Affiliation

¹ Tianjin Key Laboratory of Organic Solar Cells and Photochemical Conversion, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, No. 391, Binshuixi Road, Tianjin 300384, China.

Abstract

The selective production of C4 bulk chemicals from biomass is significant to replace the traditional method from petroleum resource. In this work, the succinic anhydride (SAN) is directly prepared from bio-based furanic platform compounds utilizing the visible light-induced oxygenation process, in which m-tetraphenyl porphyrin (H₂TPP) and molecular oxygen was employed as the photocatalyst and terminal oxidant, respectively. Under optimal conditions, a 99.9% conversion with 97.8% selectivity of SAN was obtained from furoic acid (FAC) at room temperature. Moreover, the transformation of furfural and furfuryl alcohol with this system can also generate SAN, and the product selectivity is controllable by tuning light intensity and time. Furthermore, the EPR detection, isotope labeling, and control experiments exhibited that the generation of singlet oxygen plays a crucial role and 5-hydroxy-2(5H)-furanone is the main intermediate during the reaction. Finally, a possible reaction mechanism for the production of SAN from furanic compound is proposed.

Keywords: Catalysis; Molecular inorganic chemistry.