Sequential dehydration of sorbitol to isosorbide over acidified niobium oxides

Abstract

Isosorbide is a bio-based functional diol, which is prepared by sequential dehydration of sorbitol and widely used in plasticizers, monomers, solvents or pharmaceuticals. In this study, a variety of acidified...

Sustainable Sorbitol Dehydration to Isosorbide using Solid Acid Catalysts: Transition from Batch Reactor to Continuous‐Flow System

“…Recently, Guo et al. obtained 84 % of isosorbide yield using modified Nb 2 O 5 at 413 K for 8 h of reaction time [39] . However, the molten‐phase isosorbide synthesis presents some obstacles in view of industrial scale‐up such as the usage of a small amount of catalyst and reactant, the difficulties in product separation, and the discontinuous operational mode.…”

“…[36c] Recently, Guo et al obtained 84 % of isosorbide yield using modified Nb 2 O 5 at 413 K for 8 h of reaction time. [39] However, the molten-phase isosorbide synthesis presents some obstacles in view of industrial scale-up such as the usage of a small amount of catalyst and reactant, the difficulties in product separation, and the discontinuous operational mode. Moreover, the molten-phase experiment relies on solid and pure sorbitol as reactant and can hardly take place in an integrated process starting from biomass due to the high purification costs.…”

Markedly Improved Catalytic Dehydration of Sorbitol to Isosorbide by Sol–Gel Sulfated Zirconia: A Quantitative Structure–Reactivity Study

“…For example, upon complete sorbitol conversion over SZ, Khan et al obtained isosorbide in 62% yield in 2 h at 210 °C; 41 while more recently, Zhang et al achieved 29% yield at 180 °C after 2 h. 42 Although possessing high activities, SZ and other sulfated oxides frequently necessitate elevated temperatures that increase formation of oligomeric byproducts, thereby lowering product yields. 43 Additionally, reduced pressure is commonly used to accelerate dehydration, [31][32][33]41,44,45 which, along with elevated reaction temperatures, results in energy-intensive processes: key motivators in this study.…”

Coordination of sorbitol to Ga(OTf)3 in the liquid phase: an experimental and theoretical study

“…Recently, the acid-catalyzed dehydration of sorbitol to isosorbide has been extensively studied, including heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysis. 4,5 For the heterogeneous catalysis, some solid acid catalysts have been explored, e.g., H-b, [6][7][8] sulfonated-C, 9 P-SO 3 -H, 10 BPO 4 , 11 Cu 2 O(SO 4 ), 12 Nb 2 O 5 , 13 SiO 2 -Al 2 O 3 , 14 SnPO, 15 H 4 SiW 12 O 40 , 3,16 NbOPO 4 , 17 and so on. However, these selective and recyclable heterogeneous catalysts still face great limitations, because of the requirement of high reaction temperature, which usually leads to a large number of side-products, and the requirement of frequent and often tedious catalyst regeneration.…”