A Review of Acetol: Application and Production

Abstract

Problem statement: Acetol is used as organic intermediates because it contains both hydroxyl and carbonyl functional groups and mainly use to produce polyols and acrolein. It also widely uses as reduced dyes and skin tanning agent. The commercially used acetol is made from petroleum-based that leads to high cost of production. Approach: This review highlighted applications of acetol and established methods and factors affecting acetol selectivity. Global market of acetol and its contribution in Malaysia were also surveyed. Results: Multiple ways which was through dehydration of glycerol or dehydrogenation of polyols and sugar alcohols could be applied to produce acetol. Conclusion: The approach using glycerol as feedstock since its economic viable in the presence of metal supported acidic catalyst is the very promising and reliable because it's high conversion and selectivity. The production under optimum conditions still remained as an open challenge to all researchers.

Microbial conversion of pyrolytic products to biofuels: a novel and sustainable approach toward second-generation biofuels

“…Acetol is applied as an intermediate chemical to synthesize glycol, acetone, acrolein, propylene, propionaldehyde, and furan derivatives [34]. Acetol is also used in food industry to provide flavor to milk and food [115]. The recovery of these bio-based platform chemicals is difficult due to the complex chemical composition of pyrolysis oil and also the dilute concentration of these chemicals in pyrolysis oil [44].…”

Conceptual process design of an integrated bio-based acetic acid, glycolaldehyde, and acetol production in a pyrolysis oil-based biorefinery

“…Return on Investment (Mohamad et al, 2011) is used as the profitability criterion without taking into account the time value of money (El-Halwagi, 2012). It is calculated based on both gross and net annual profit and total capital investment (TCI).…”

“…Acetol is an intermediate to produce propylene glycol, acrolein, propionaldehyde, acetone, and furan derivatives (Dasari et al, 2005). Besides, acetol is used to give flavour to food and milk (Mohamad et al, 2011). Acetic acid and glycolaldehyde can be extracted directly from pyrolysis oil by reactive extraction with tri-noctylamine (TOA) (Mahfud et al, 2008) and sodium bisulphite (Meindersma et al, 2009), respectively.…”

Metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli to enhance acetol production from glycerol

“…Acetol is an important intermediate used to produce polyols and acrolein, which is to manufacture a reduced dye in the textile industry and a skin tanning agent in the cosmetic industry (Cameron and Cooney 1986;Soucaille et al 2008a; Mohamad et al 2011). Acetol can be either synthesized by dehydration of glycerol (Yamaguchi et al 2010) or produced through dehydrogenation of propylene glycol (Sato et al 2008).…”