(583ci) Direct Conversion of Chitin Into Nitrogen-Containing Chemicals in Ionic Liquid (ILs)

Nitrogen-containing compounds are of significant importance in industrial and medical applications. Production of these compounds directly from biomass would be ideal to replace the current practice that involves multi-step transformations starting from energy intensive, low efficiency chemical fixation of nitrogen gas. Chitin, which is the second largest biopolymer on earth that stores nitrogen by biological fixation, provides a cheap, renewable and abundant feedstock for the manufacturing of nitrogen-containing chemicals.

This study focuses on the direct conversion of chitin into useful chemicals, such as 3-acetamido-5-acetylfuran, by using ILs as solvent and Lewis acids as catalyst. The reaction was conducted in multi-cell reactors under stirring at various temperatures. After reaction, the product was analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and also confirmed by NMR analysis. A number of ILs and additives (such as FeCl₃, CrCl₃, NaCl and B(OH)₃ etc.) were investigated to identify the best systems for the reaction, and B(OH)₃ and CrCl₃ were found to be most effective. Under optimized conditions 3-acetamido-5-acetylfuran was obtained with higher than 5 % yield. XRD, FTIR, GPC and NMR techniques, and kinetic analysis were employed to investigate the reaction mechanism and a hydrolysis-dehydration two-step process was proposed to be the major reaction pathway. This work demonstrates for the first time that it is possible to obtain nitrogen-containing chemicals directly from chitin, opening up new avenues for the biomass valorization.