Title
A glucose-derived carbonaceous solid acid catalyst for cellooligosaccharides hydrolysis in an aqueous reaction system
Authors
WAN-YU LIU WEI QI SHU-NA LIU QIONG WANG JIN-SONG ZHOU ZHEN-HONG YUAN and XIN-SHU ZHUANG

Received July 7, 2015
Published Volume 51 Issue 5-6 May-June
Keywords carbonaceous solid acid, hydrolysis, cellooligosaccharides

Abstract
An amorphous carbon based catalyst was prepared by carbonation and sulfonation of several typical biomass materials, including glucose, microcrystalline cellulose, sugarcane bagasse, eucalyptus, switchgrass and microalgae. Preliminary experimental results on cellobiose hydrolysis indicated that the catalyst prepared from glucose exhibited the highest catalytic activity. Thus, methods, including SEM, XRD, FT-IR, NH3-TPD and elemental analysis, were employed to characterize the catalyst before and after sulfonation. Compared with other conventional solid acid catalysts, the catalyst bearing –SO3H, -COOH, and -OH groups exhibited remarkable activity in the hydrolysis of β-1,4-glycosidic bonds and no other by-reactions were detected in further hydrolysis experiments. After the hydrolysis reaction, the solid acid catalyst could be readily separated from the saccharide solution for reuse without any significant loss of activity.