Levulinic acid (LA) is a versatile platform chemical that can be used for production of fuels, fuel additives and a variety of chemicals. Conventionally, LA can be produced from biomass-derived cellulose using a dilute acid catalyst after fractionation of lignocellulosic biomass. The main challenge for the sulfuric acid catalyzed deconstruction of cellulose is the separation of intermediates at low concentration from the aqueous sulfuric acid solution to eliminate negative effects of the latter in downstream processing, such as in the conversion of LA to γ-valerolactone (GVL). Thus, several sulfuric acid management strategies have been reported in the literature. In the present study, our aim is to assess the industrial potential of these strategies (namely “butyl acetate”, “esterification” and “alkylphenol”), which produce a mixture of hydrocarbons through the formation of LA and GVL based on a selective catalytic route. The overall process relies on five main steps: (i) cellulose deconstruction to produce levulinic and formic acids; (ii) GVL production to partially reduce the oxygen content and increase the energy density; (iii) sulfuric acid management to separate the sulfuric acid used in the cellulose deconstruction step from intermediates (LA or GVL); (iv) butene production from GVL to increase the energy density due to complete removal of the oxygen; (v) butene oligomerization to produce larger olefins with appropriate molecular weights to be used as liquid fuels.
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