(371c) Reactive Pervaporation under Hydrothermal Condition to Produce Biochemicals from Agricultural Byproducts

Furfural, on which we focused in this work, is a strategic chemical feedstock due to numbers of promising industrial applications. It is known that furfural is produced from pentoses which exist in biomass, e.g., agricultural byproducts. However, the secondary decomposition of the furfural produced easily occurs to decrease the furfural yield because of its high reactivity. It is necessary to control such undesired reactions. To solve the problem, we tried to develop a furfural production process using a reactive pervaporation. In our process, the furfural produced is promptly taken out from a reaction field through the membrane by means of the pervaporation and the decomposition of the furfural is prohibited. In addition, condensed furfural carries out big contribution to the chemical industry. In this study, we performed a series of experiments for the furfural production from some existing biomass, i.e., rice husks and corn residues, using a lab-scale test reactor. It was found that the proposed reactive pervaporation process remarkably enhanced the yield of furfural produced from biomass.