Synthesis and Uses
Related to its original synthesis, levulinic acid is prepared in the laboratory by heating sucrose with concentrated hydrochloric acid. The process proceeds via the intermediacy of glucose, which is isomerized to fructose and then hydroxymethylfurfural. Other sugar-derivatives can be used in this process including levulose (D-fructose), inulin and starch as well as other acids such as sulfuric.
Levulinic acid is a potential precursor to nylon-like polymers, synthetic rubbers, and plastics. It is a versatile synthetic intermediate, e.g., in the synthesis of pharmaceuticals. It is a precursor in the production of other chemical commodities such as methyltetrahydrofuran, valerolactone, and ethyl levulinate. Dehydration of levulinic acid gives α-Angelica lactone (CAS#591-12-8). The first manufacturing facility able to produce levulinic acid at an industrial scale is Green Future based in Caserta, Italy.
Read more about this topic: Levulinic Acid
Famous quotes containing the word synthesis:
“It is in this impossibility of attaining to a synthesis of the inner life and the outward that the inferiority of the biographer to the novelist lies. The biographer quite clearly sees Peel, say, seated on his bench while his opponents overwhelm him with perhaps undeserved censure. He sees him motionless, miserable, his head bent on his breast. He asks himself: “What is he thinking?” and he knows nothing.”
—Andre Maurois (1885–1967)