Boreskov Institute of Catalysis SB RAS, Novosibirsk, Russia

PROCESS FOR THE PREPARATION OF L-LACTIDEKhlopov Dmitry 1 , Shvets Valeriy 2 , Kozlovskiy Roman 3 , Suchkov Yury 41 D.I. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia, Moscow,hlopovd@mail.ru, +7(499)77969732hxc@muctr.ru, +7(499)97895543rakozlovskiy@mail.ru, +7(499)97895544 hxc@muctr.ru, +7(499)9789554PP-24L-Lactide is a monomer that can be polymerized into polymeric materials.Polymers made from L-lactide are particularly useful because they can be biodegradedover time under most environmental conditions into carbon dioxide andwater. In the future such compounds can solve the problem of polymeric wastes.In literature there are a lot of works devoted to synthesis of L-lactide from L-lacticacid. In the current report we present results on investigation of L-lactide synthesisfrom butyl lactate which can be prepared from ammonium lactate obtained byfermentation of renewable source.The process of butyl lactate conversion to L-lactide comprises two stages:1. butyl lactate condensation yielding to oligomer formation having an averagemolecular weight in a range from 100 to 5,000;2. L-lactide synthesis by oligomer depolymerization.The influence of reaction conditions (such as temperature, pressure, catalyst typeand concentration) on conversion and selectivity for both stages of process wasinvestigated and optimal ranges of these parameters were determined.As a catalyst the series of compounds of metals of Groups IV, V and VII ofPeriodic Table were tested. It was found that most efficient catalyst was tin (II)octoate which efficiently catalyzed as oligomerization and depolymerization stagesand can be recycled.113