Sustainable Co-Synthesis of Glycolic Acid, Formamides and Formates from 1,3-Dihydroxyacetone by a Cu/Al2 O3 Catalyst with a Single Active Sites

Xingchao Dai; Sven Adomeit; Jabor Rabeah; Carsten Kreyenschulte; Angelika Brückner; Hongli Wang; Feng Shi

doi:10.1002/anie.201814050

Sustainable Co-Synthesis of Glycolic Acid, Formamides and Formates from 1,3-Dihydroxyacetone by a Cu/Al₂ O₃ Catalyst with a Single Active Sites

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2019 Apr 8;58(16):5251-5255. doi: 10.1002/anie.201814050. Epub 2019 Feb 27.

Authors

Xingchao Dai^{1

2}, Sven Adomeit³, Jabor Rabeah³, Carsten Kreyenschulte³, Angelika Brückner³, Hongli Wang¹, Feng Shi¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory for Oxo Synthesis and Selective Oxidation, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.18, Tianshui Middle Road, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 19A, Yuquanlu, Beijing, 100049, China.
³ Leibniz-Institut für Katalyse e.V. an der Universität Rostock (LIKAT), Albert-Einstein-Str. 29a, 18059, Rostock, Germany.

PMID: 30715789
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201814050

Abstract

Glycolic acid (GA), as important building block of biodegradable polymers, has been synthesized for the first time in excellent yields at room temperature by selective oxidation of 1,3-dihyroxyacetone (DHA) using a cheap supported Cu/Al₂ O₃ catalyst with single active Cu^II species. By combining EPR spin-trapping and operando ATR-IR experiments, different mechanisms for the co-synthesis of GA, formates, and formamides have been derived, in which ^. OH radicals formed from H₂ O₂ by a Fenton-like reaction play a key role.

Keywords: 1,3-dihydroxyacetone; EPR spectroscopy; biomass conversion; formamides and formates; glycolic acid.

Abstract

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