Conversion of glycerol to lactic acid catalyzed by platinum supported on activated carbon

Abstract

Production of lactic acid by conversion of glycerol by heterogenous catalyst is an option to process the large amounts of glycerol. The platinum supported activated carbon catalyst were characterized by XRD, SEM, EDX, TEM and N2 physical adsorption. This catalyst was evaluated for the conversion of glycerol into lactic acid, analyzing the reaction following factors: catalyst loading, catalyst weight, molar ratio NaOH/glycerol, temperature and reaction time. The results showed that Pt/AC with 5% Pt loading exhibited the highest seletivity the conversion of glycerol into lactic acid. Under the conditions that produced better results, about 99% glycerol conversion and 74% selectivity for lactic acid were when reacting 100 mL of glycerol solution (0.5M), using 0.4g catalyst in the presence of NaOH at 503 K for 3 h. Apart from that, it was also evaluated the stability of the catalyst, with conversion values and selectivity of lactic acid without significant diferences for 5 cycles.