Levulinic Acid Production from Macroalgae: Production and Promising Potential in Industry

Abstract

The development of macroalgal biorefinery products as an alternative source of renewable fuels is an opportunity to solve the dependence on fossil fuels. Macroalgae is a potential biomass that can be developed as a raw material for producing platform chemicals such as levulinic acid (LA). In the industrial sector, LA is among the top 12 biomass-derived feedstocks designated by the U.S. Department of Energy as a high-value chemical. Several studies have been conducted on the production of LA from terrestrial-based biomass, however, there is still limited information on its production from macroalgae. The advantages of macroalgae over terrestrial and other biomasses include high carbohydrate and biomass production, less cultivation cost, and low lignin content. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the potential and challenge of producing LA from macroalgae in the industrial sector and determine its advantages and disadvantages compared with terrestrial biomass in LA production. In this study, various literature sources were examined using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) method to identify, screen, and analyze the data of the published paper. Despite its advantages, there are some challenges in making the production of levulinic acid from macroalgae feasible for development at the industrial scale. Some challenges such as sustainability of macroalgae, the efficiency of pretreatment, and hydrolysis technology are often encountered during the production of levulinic acid from macroalgae on an industrial scale.

Efficient Conversions of Macroalgae-Derived Anhydrosugars to 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural and Levulinic Acid: The Remarkable Case of 3,6-Anhydro-d-galactose

“…In recent years, macroalgae or seaweeds have received considerable attention and particularly to serve as a marine biomass source for the synthesis of biobased chemicals. , They have favorable properties like a very fast growth rate, a high content of carbohydrates (up to 76% on dry weight), and limited amounts of lignin in the structure . Carrageenan and agar (consisting of agarose and agaropectin) are commercially used polysaccharides obtained from seaweed.…”

Experimental and Kinetic Modeling of Galactose Valorization to Levulinic Acid

“…The conversion of third-generation macroand micro-algal biomass into bioenergy and biochemicals has been attracting the attention of researchers [1][2][3][4][5] for its superiority to the other generations in terms of ease of cultivation, noncompetitive with food ingredients, and convertibility into bio-based products [2,4]. The contents of carbohydrates are the source of sugar-based renewable raw materials and it is a promising [12].…”

“…The contents of carbohydrates are the source of sugar-based renewable raw materials and it is a promising [12]. These derivative products are applicable as herbicides, fuel additives, anti-freeze, plasticizers, solvents, food flavoring agents, pharmaceuticals, and resins [1,3].…”

“…Galactose is a simple sugar that has 6 carbon chains and is an epimer with glucose, which differs in the configuration of the OH group in the C-4 carbon [21]. It is one constituent of polysaccharides-carbohydrates contained in third-generation biomass that has been shown to produce LA [1]. It is a constituent of polysaccharides in Gelidium amansii (redmacroalgae) [22], the first dominant constituent of Gracilaria verrucose (red macroalga) [23,24], and the second dominant constituent after glucose in Spirulina platensis (blue-green microalgae) [25,26].…”

“…However, only a few of them reported C6-sugar derived from galactose. Whereas, the potential use of galactose to become LA needs to be intensively studied because it is the monosaccharide that builds the third-generation biomass, which has a reaction route to become LA [1,[22][23][24]. Therefore, there is a need to perform a systematic investigation to determine the potential use of galactose to form LA.…”