A Regenerable Sorbent for Deep Desulfurization of Alpha Pinene

The production of turpentine in the U.S. exceeded 301,000 tons in 2004 (Romney 2004) and the production of resin acids exceeded 800,000 ton in 2003 (Romney 2004), which also includes the production from directly tapping trees (e.g., gum turpentine, gum rosin). There is growing demand for bio-plastics (non-petroleum derived polymers); for example Pepsi announced it will be using bio-plastic bottles in all their products by 2018. Coca Cola is expected to follow suit, which will generate commercial interest for inexpensive bio-materials that can provide an alternative to bio-ethanol (expensive for a raw material). TDA believes that this is an emerging market with substantial growth potential. Worldwide production of pinenes is 0.33 million tons per year (FAO, 2011); 70% of this comes from CST produced as chemical pulping by-product. A major consequence of the pulping process is that sulfur compounds are introduced into the CST, which substantially degrades the quality of the pinenes. Sulfur compounds not only reduces the potency of the pinene flavor (as they usually smell bad), but also, they poison the noble metal and metal oxide catalysts used to in the fine chemical synthesis process (such as the Pt-based catalysts used in alpha pinene to beta pinene isomerization). Sulfur remaining in the fine chemicals are also undesirable. For example, sulfur imparts foul odors to the bio-plastics. Therefore, these terpene fractions must be desulfurized to increase value of the bio-products and the specialty chemicals that are made from them. The proposed outcome of this project is a sulfur sorbent capable of removing sulfur compounds from alpha pinene and other derivatives of turpentine (terpenes etc.). These pure fractions will generate increased market value for a range of applications, and their purity will make them suitable feedstocks for catalytic conversion to specialty chemicals