Catalytic Hydrogenation Of Furfural And Its Derivatives

Catalytic hydrogenation of furfural and its derivatives offers enormous prospects for the development of a biorefinery based feedstock, along with establishment of technologies for chemical production. The present work was focused on the study of conversion of furfural and furfuryl alcohol over different supported metal catalysts, and three parts were included:1. Selective hydrogenation of furfural to furfuryl alcohol under mild conditions was evaluated over Ru nanoparticles supported on a series of zirconium based metal organic frameworks. The good catalytic performance can be related to metallic Ru species formed upon exposure to H2 under reaction conditions.2. The liquid phase hydrogenation of furfuryl alcohol was evaluated over various metal oxides supported Pd catalysts and different catalysts preparation methods were compared. TiO2 treated by a hydrothermal method was used as support of Pd nanoparticles. The superior catalytic performance in terms of both furfuryl alcohol conversion and tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol selectivity probably attributed to the unique structure of titanate nanotube.3. Conversion of furfural into 2-(diethoxymethyl)tetrahydrofuran was succeeded by using a cheap and easily-synthesized Pd/Al2O3 catalyst. The adsorption of furfural on the surface active sites, the acid strength of support, solvent and H2 pressure may account for the catalytic performance.