Convert Cellulose to Alkane: Process Explained

[samblohm]

I'm just curious, what would the process be if someone wanted to change cellulose into an alkane? (I don't plan to try it. If I wanted an alkane then I could just go to the gas station.)

 

[alxm]

Can't quite be done really. (in any manner cost efficient enough to be sensible) Cellulose is just a (very branched) sugar chain, so you don't have any individual carbon chains longer than the 6 in glucose, and each of those has a hydroxo group on it, meaning you'd have to reduce that to get an alkane.

For fuel purposes, cellulosic ethanol is where it's at.

 

[chemisttree]

I saw an article on this last week. I believe it was PhysOrg. Anyway, http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/308/5727/1446?hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&FIRSTINDEX=0&maxtoshow=&journalcode=sci&HITS=10&fulltext=Production+of+Liquid+Alkanes+by+Aqueous-phase+Processing+of&searchid=1140726225359_13321"

 

[Kyle1990]

I have conducted experiments in which I have successfully converted cellulose into glucose. If you wanted an alkane, in theory, you could oxidize all the -OH of glucose to their respective aldehydes or ketones and treat them with hydrazine/KOH (Wolff-Kishner Reduction) to replace all C=O with H-C-H

 

[samblohm]

How did you hydrate the cellulose?

 

[Kyle1990]

Mechanical milling with the aid of a catalyst. I can't really divulge into details because we're submitting the article for publication.