Selective Production of Lactitol from Lactose Without Exogenous Hydrogen Using the Lewis Acid Site of Mof Catalysts

The production of lactitol is usually under high pressure and requires the exogenous addition of H2 using nickel-, palladium-, and ruthenium-based catalysts. Consequently, lactitol has a high production cost. In this study, a Fe-based metal-organic framework with Lewis acid sites (MIL-101(Fe)) has been constructed to convert lactose into lactitol. The production of lactitol using MIL-101(Fe) did not require high pressure and the exogenous addition of H2. MIL-101(Fe) exhibited a high yield of 97.66% and remarkable selectivity of 99.99% during the conversion of lactose to lactitol. Our mechanistic results indicated that the Lewis acid sites played a key role in the conversion of lactose to lactitol. Furthermore, MIL-101(Fe) exhibited good stability and reusability with no significant loss in its catalytic activity observed after five consecutive cycles.

Keywords: Lactitol, Metal-organic frames, Lewis acid site

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Xie, Donghui and Xing, Keyu and Xu, Keyu and Jia, Pei and Yao, Li and Cheng, Yunhui and Xu, Zhou, Selective Production of Lactitol from Lactose Without Exogenous Hydrogen Using the Lewis Acid Site of Mof Catalysts. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4987449 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4987449