Kinetics of Glucose Ethanolysis Catalyzed by Extremely Low Sulfuric Acid in Ethanol Medium

The kinetics for production of ethyl levulinate from glucose in ethanol medium was investigated. The experiments were performed in various temperatures (433-473 K) and initial glucose concentrations (0.056-0.168 mol·L-1) with extremely low sulfuric acid as the catalyst. The results show that higher temperature can improve the conversion of glucose to ethyl levulinate, with higher yield of ethyl levulinate (44.79%, by mole) obtained at 473 K for 210 min. The kinetics follows a simplified first-order kinetic model. For the main and side reactions, the values of activation energy are 122.64 and 70.97 kJ·mol-1, and the reaction orders are 0.985 and 0.998, respectively.