under the same conditions.
The lactic acid yields appeared to be insensitive to the pH in the
range of 3 to 10, with either ZrO2 or MgO as the catalyst. Unlike
ZrO2, the MgO catalyst yielded no furfural but a higher amount of
low molecular-weight carboxylic acids including formic, acetic and
glycolic acids in the pH range of 0 to 14. The formation of acetic
acid may stem from a hydrolytic -cleavage by the nucleophilic
attack of the base