Renewable resources often possess less intrinsic functionality as compared with chemical feedstocks obtained from fossil fuels. One particular functionality of significant commercial interest is the presence of unsaturation, or, more specifically, carbon-carbon double bonds. The commodity oxychemical maleic anhydride is to be produced from a fermentation-derived feedstock as an example of dehydrogenation that forms such double bonds. An efficient, economic process has been developed to produce succinic acid by fermentation of renewable resources. Phase I research aims to develop a chemical catalytic process for dehydrogenation of succinic anhydride to maleic anhydride. While important for production of maleic anhydride, the techniques developed should also have applications in other commercially viable chemical processes.Anticipated Results/Potential Commercial Applications as described by the awardee:Maleic anhydride is a large volume commodity oxychemical. Success in this project will demonstrate the feasibility of the production of maleic anhydride from succinic acid. Phase II activities will pursue refinement of the process and catalyst development. Significant commercial potential exists in the corn wet-milling industry because of rapid expansion of fermentation capacity. It may be possible to generalize these results to other saturated compounds produced by fermentation.
