(430a) Sustainable Pathways to Acrylic Acid - the Impact of Biomass Source on the Catalytic Dehydration of Lactic Acid to Acrylic Acid

Acrylic acid and the four primary acrylate derivatives are the cornerstone of a $10B market with broad application across superabsorbent polymers, paints, coatings, and adhesives industries. Producing these chemicals necessary for modern life from sustainable pathways is of key interest. We focus on the dehydration of feeds derived from lactic acid, a product sustainably fermented from a range of bio-derived sugar sources.

Utilizing an inert and site-selective chemical titrant to form an inorganic/ organic composite can provide desirable selectivity tuning. Here, a selectivity enhancement from 60 to upwards of 96 C% was demonstrated for methyl lactate dehydration to methyl acrylate and acrylic acid over a composite Na-FAU based zeolite catalyst using amines as titrants to suppress side reactions on in situ-generated Bronsted acid sites.

How does the selectivity and catalytic process affect the sustainability of bio-based chemicals production? For transition of petrochemicals to biochemicals, two necessary hurdles must be met: 1) cash cost of production by the bio-based method should be close to that of the petrochemical and 2) sustainability, on a life-cycle basis, should be significantly better than that of the petrochemical. Here we present results on life cycle analysis of the lactic acid to acrylic acid dehydration and show how the biomass sugar source impacts the life cycle assessment.

Our results indicate, on a cradle to gate of the factory basis, that acrylic acid production from sugarcane is a typically net carbon sequestration and that beets and corn, two widely used sugar sources, offer significant improvement versus today's oil derived process for acrylic acid production.