Approaching Lactate Inorganically

摘要

Conversion of biomass to value-added chemical compounds currently relies in large part on fermentation. For full-scale displacement of petroleum as the chemical industry's primary feedstock, alternative conversion technologies will be necessary. Holm et al. (p. 602) have found that Lewis acidic zeolite derivatives suspended in methanol can catalyze the selective conversion of glucose, fructose, and sucrose sugars to methyl lactate, a versatile synthetic intermediate for commercial products. The catalysts were easily separated from product mixtures and proved robust over six reaction and regeneration cycles.