Successful Arkema & hte research project in glycerol to acrolein and acrylic acid conversion

16-Mar-2009 - Germany

hte and Arkema announced the successful conclusion of a research collaboration in the field of glycerol conversion to acrolein and acrylic acid.

The objective of this collaborative project consisted of providing performance screening for a variety of new suitable catalysts for conversion reactions of glycerol, a biodiesel by-product derived from biomass, to acrolein and acrylic acid. Arkema, which has already registered a number of patents in this field, opted for the services of hte’s state-of-the-art laboratories in Heidelberg (Germany) which use a proprietary parallel testing technology to accelerate this process of exploration and evaluation, thus moving interesting catalysts more quickly from experimentation towards potential commercialisation.

This research collaboration, which began last year, was the first high throughput experimentation programme of this kind to be undertaken by Arkema. The production of acrolein and acrylic acid from biomass processing falls in line with Arkema’s strategy to develop sustainable chemicals based on more efficient processes and the use of renewable raw materials. “The greatest advantage of using hte’s technology has been the vast amount of time saved during this project. By using this approach we have been able to produce results in a matter of months. This would normally have taken over two years using conventional testing equipment,“ says Jean-Luc Dubois, Scientific Director at Arkema. High throughput catalyst testing has put Arkema in a position of increased competitiveness and has significantly reduced its R&D costs.

https://www.chemeurope.com/en/news/98251/successful-arkema-hte-research-project-in-glycerol-to-acrolein-and-acrylic-acid-conversion.html