A Green Clean Process for the Production of Methacrylic Acid and Methacrolein from Biofuel

摘要

Excessive consumption of fossil fuels for energy and chemical production has led to global warming and other negative impacts worldwide in recent years. About 10% of U.S. crude oil imports are used to feed its chemical industry, while only about 4% of chemical sales are attributable to renewable origin. Shifting from fossil fuels based to biomass based chemical productions requires enabling technologies. Methacrylic acid and methyl methacrylate are important monomers for the productions of many valuable methacrylate polymers. The annual methacrylate market is about $2.1 and $8.1 billion in the US and worldwide, respectively. Methacrylate is produced mainly from acetone and HCN via the so-called ACH process, which also uses large sums of H2SO4 and has serious environmental, health and safety issues. A green and clean catalytic process is being investigated, aiming at achieving a sustainable methacrylate production from bioisobutanol, a 2nd generation biofuel, as well as to avoid all of the negative issues associated with the ACH process.