Title
Sustainable electrochemical production of tartaric acid
Author
Garcia, A.C.
Sánchez Martínez, C.
Bakker, I.J.
Goetheer, E.L.V.
Publication year
2020
Abstract
Herein, we describe a study of the electrochemical reduction of oxalic and glyoxylic acids toward a feasible green and sustainable production of tartaric acid in aqueous and/or acetonitrile solvent using silver and lead electrodes. Our results show that on the silver electrode, for both oxalic acid and glyoxylic acid, the reduction reaction is more favorable toward the dimerization step, leading to tartaric acid, due to the increase in the local pH, while on the lead electrode, the step involving the protonation of the intermediate is more favorable, leading to the formation of glycolate. Techno-economic analysis shows that tartaric acid production from glyoxylic acid and from oxalic acid via electrochemical synthesis can be a potential process at the industrial scale. In the present case, the oxygen evolution reaction was chosen as the reaction at the other electrode for practical reasons, but oxygen is a low-value product. Another anodic reaction with a more valuable oxidation product can be selected to increase the profitability of the overall electrochemical process and thereby decrease the total production costs of tartaric acid.
Subject
Electro-dimerization reaction
Electro-organic synthesis
Green sysnthesis
Sustainable chemistry
Tartaric acid production
Techno-economic analysis
Sustainable Chemical Industry
Industrial Innovation
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http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:c20d8141-ae22-4ef6-9ed0-6b10d9501b12
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c02493
TNO identifier
878809
Publisher
American Chemical Society ACS, Washington, DC, USA
ISSN
2168-0485
Source
ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, 8 (8), 10454-10460
Document type
article