Uncatalysed wet oxidation of d-glucose with hydrogen peroxide and its combination with hydrothermal electrolysis

An increasing interest in biomass as a renewable feedstock for the chemical industry has risen over the last decades, and glucose, the monomer unit of cellulose, has been widely studied as a source material to produce value-added products such as carboxylic acids, mainly gluconic and formic. In this work, the non-catalysed wet oxidation of glucose using hydrogen peroxide has been analysed, obtaining molar yields to gluconic and formic acids up to 15% and 64%, respectively. Glucose conversion was generally between 40 and 50%, reaching over 80% under the highest temperature (200 °C). An appropriate choice of temperature can tune product distribution as well as reaction rates. The interaction of the wet oxidation with an electrolytic reaction was also analysed.

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► Novel non-catalysed wet oxidation of glucose with H2O2 is presented.
► Combination of wet oxidation with hydrothermal electrolysis is studied.
► Value-added products such as gluconic and formic acids are obtained.
► Current intensity has strong effect when combining wet oxidation with electrolysis.