With the rapid growth of the world population and continuing depletion of petroleum reserves, green approaches using renewable resources for the production of chemicals will be required. Lignocellulosic biomass is an abundant, inexpensive, and sustainable resource from which platform chemicals can be derived. 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) is derived from cellulose via dehydration of glucose and fructose. HMF can be further converted to 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) through three-step oxidation. The latter is listed as one of twelve top biomass-derived value-added chemicals by the American Department of Energy (DOE). The most promising application of FDCA is the replacement of fossil-based terephthalic acid in synthesis of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics. Three-step oxidation of HMF to FDCA can be achieved via chemical pathway, but it requires special catalysts, high pressure and temperature and organic solvents which make process environmentally unfriendly and costly. A lot of research has been recently pointed into enzymatic conversion of HMF to FDCA which, by contrast, requires mild conditions such as room pressure and temperature, producing less toxic waste and is thus eco-friendlier. In present master thesis we studied catalytic activity of six commercially available enzymes: alcohol oxidase, galactose oxidase, catalase, laccase, lignin peroxidase and horseradish peroxidase in field of oxidising HMF to FDCA. We broke down the aforementioned three-step oxidation to separate reactions to determine all the possible substrates as well as reaction products for each individual enzyme. The product yields obtained with these single-enzyme reactions were mostly low, except in case when the substrate was 5-formyl-2-furancarboxylic acid (FFCA), where some of the yields of the conversion of FFCA to FDCA exceeded 80 %. We have also determined some of the physical properties of the HMF acid derivatives, where we found that they form associates in solutions. Based on quantum mechanics approach we calculated electron density for each exanimated HMF acid derivative as well we determined corresponding pKa values.
|