Study on the production of ethyl levulinate from biomass in the ethanol system

Ethyl levulinate (EL) has been identified as a versatile chemical feedstock derived from biomass. The production of EL from cellulose in the system containing alcohol was studied. In addition, the effects of water and organic solvent (cyclohexane) on EL yield were also investigated. The results show that higher acid concentration can improve the conversion of cellulose to EL and the addition of cyclohexane is helpful to improve the EL yield in initial reaction phase. However, higher temperature is unfavorable for the increase of EL yield, and the yield decreased significantly with the increase of water addition. Moreover, the residue of cellulose was characterized using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and FT-IR spectroscopy.