• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.11-19
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• 2023

Levulinic acid (LA) derived from cellulosic biomass, serves a crucial intermediate that can be used in various chemical conversions. This study focused on optimizing the production of LA using two types of pretreated rice husk (de-ashed and delignificated cellulosic biomass) in a batch reaction system through catalytic conversion with sulfuric acid. To determine the optimal conditions, the conversions of glucose and α-cellulose were examined to compare the effects of pretreatment on the rice husk. The experimental parameters covered a broad spectrum, including temperatures ranging from 140℃ to 200℃, a reaction time was up to 600 minutes, and a substrate to catalyst (acid solution) ratio of 100 g/L. The highest LA yield was 44.8%, achieved from de-ashed rice husk with 3.0 wt.% of sulfuric acid at 180℃ and with a reaction time of 180 minutes. In the case of the delignificated rice husk, a LA yield of 43.6% was obtained with 3.0 wt.% of sulfuric acid at 200℃ and with reaction time of 30 minutes.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.438-442
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• 2013

The study of bioproduct production from inexpensive biomass such as marine biomass has recently attracted considerable attention. Because, marine biomass which compared to land biomass, it can be grown rapidly and is easily cultivated without the need for expensive equipment. In addition, the carbohydrate contents are similar or higher than land biomass such as woody biomass and can be easily converted to chemicals through proper chemical processes. In the production of various biochemicals from marine biomass, levulinic acid is a highly versatile chemical with numerous industrial uses and has the potential to become a commodity chemical. It can be used as a raw material for resins, plasticizers, textiles, animal feed, coatings and antifreeze. In this study, experiments were carried out to determine the optimum conditions of temperature, acid concentration and reaction time for production of levulinic acid from marine biomass, Gelidium amansii, using two-step treatment. In the first hydrolysis step, solid-state cellulose which was used to produce ethanol by fermentation and liquid-state galactose which used to produce bioproduct such as levulinic aicd were obtained through acid soaking. In the second hydrolysis step, the liquid-state galactose was converted into levulinic acid via a high-temperature reaction in a batch reactor. As a result, the overall production yield of Gelidium amansii to levulinic acid in the two-step acid hydrolysis was approximately 20.6% on the initial biomass basis.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.61 no.2
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• pp.265-272
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• 2023

Lignocellulosic biomass is essential to pretreatment because of having rigid structures and a lot of lignin. Among methods of pretreatment, using THF solvents has the advantage of being easy to reuse. THF (Tetrahydrofuran) used as a co-solvent with water or ionic solvent that is inexpensive and can remove lignin over a wide range of reaction conditions. NaOH (Sodium hydroxide) has been demonstrated to preferentially solvate lignin from cellulose. Thus, NaOH was used as a pretreatment co-solvent for the fractionation of lignin by destroying the ether bond to amend for hydrolysis and expand the surface area of cellulose and hemicellulose. In this experiment, lignin was removed by the NaOH/THF co-solvent pretreatment process to characteristics for the pretreatment and obtain the optimal levulinic acid conversion yield through the acid catalyst conversion process. the NaOH/THF co-solvent system was conducted in various ratios of co-solvent under a total of 16 conditions. And the temperature was 180 ℃ during to 60 mins. The optimum condition of co-solvent is NaOH 5 wt%/THF 90:10(v/v%), 76.8% glucan content was obtained through this co-solvent pretreatment, and 90.1% lignin was removed. In the acid catalyst conversion process, which is a subsequent pretreatment process, the experiment was conducted under the conditions of 30 to 90 min of reaction time and 160 ℃ to 200 ℃ reaction temperature. The optimum condition of acid catalyst conversion process is 60min reaction time under of 180 ℃, and it obtained 84.7% of levulinic aicd conversion yield.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.17-26
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• 2004

In this study the extracellular production of 5-aminolevulinic aicd (ALA) by recombinant E. coli BL2l (DE3) pLysS harboring the plasmid pFLS45 are investigated. Optimum concentrations of succinic acid and glycine for cell growth and ALA production were found to be 30 mM and 15 mM, respectively. Levulinic acid (LA) as an inhibitor of ALAD was added to the culture medium in the end of exponential cell growth phase and its optimum concentration was 30 mM. Growth of recombinant E. coli BL2l (DE3) pLysS (pFLS45) was largely dependent upon the pH value of culture medium. When the pH of culture medium was in the range of 6.0 and 6.5, high cell mass and ALA production were obtained. IPTG induction for the expression of the fusion gene did not enhance the production of ALA. Recombinant cell grew at 30't faster than at 37$^{\circ}C$, but ALA productivity was lower than at 37$^{\circ}C$. Repeated addition of glycine, succinic acid, and LA increased the production of ALA and the inhibition of intracellular ALA dehydratase activity, with up to 1.3 g/L ALA having been produced in the cultivation.