In order to explore the feasibility of one-pot preparation of methyl levulinate (MLA)from biomass catalyzed by dilute sulfuric acid in near-critical methanol,the kinetics of MLA production were investigated at initial glucose concentration of 10—30 mg·ml-1,temperature range from 160 ℃ to 190 ℃,and sulfuric acid concentration between 0.01—0.06 mol·L-1.The results show that reaction temperature has a significant effect on the selectivity of MLA and higher yield of MLA is obtained at higher temperature.With the first-order kinetic equations,the activation energies evaluated are 107.5 kJ·mol-1 and 68.4 kJ·mol-1,and the reaction orders to H+ concentration are 0.981 and 0.953 for main and side alcoholysis reactions of glucose,respectively.The paper demonstrates that the one-pot process is promising for MLA production catalyzed by dilute sulfuric acid in near-critical methanol.
