Alkyl Levulinates from Furfuryl Alcohol Using CT151 Purolite as Heterogenous Catalyst: Optimization, Purification, and Recycling

Commercially available Purolite CT151 demonstrated to be an efficient acid catalyst for the synthesis of alkyl levulinates via alcoholysis furfuryl alcohol (FA) at mild temperatures (80–120 °C) and short reaction time (5 h). Reaction conditions were first optimized ethyl levulinate then tested preparation methyl-, propyl-, isopropyl-, butyl, sec-butyl- allyl levulinate. Preliminary scale-up tests carried out most (starting from 5.0 g FA) resulting products isolated as pure by distillation in good yields (up 63%). Furthermore, recycling experiments, conducted levulinate, showed that both exceeding ethanol can recovered reused four consecutive runs without any noticeable loss activity.