Hydrolysis of cellulose using heteropoly salts derivatives from H3PW12O40 with different redox properties as catalysts

Abstract

Heteropoly salts containing different numbers of vanadium atoms (K4[PVW11O40] - KPWV1 and
K6[PV3W9O40] - KPWV3) were synthesized from the heteropoly acid H3PW12O40 (HPW), and used as catalysts
in hydrolysis of cellulose reactions in order to change the redox properties and verify whether the cluster
of catalysts are involved in mechanism reaction. The hydrolysis reactions following a full 23 factorial
design with the variables: mass ratio (catalyst/substrate), reaction time and temperature. The variables evaluated
were significant at a 90% confidence level including second and third order interactions. According to
the conducted experiments, the catalysts were all active in hydrolysis. The best results occurred when HPW
was used suggesting that the redox properties did not have much influence in depolymerization of cellulose
and the hydrolysis mechanism are assigned to acidic properties of the medium. The main products obtained
from the reactions were glucose and HMF, which are products of great interest in the chemical industry.