posted on 2022-01-14, 21:44authored byWenting Fang, Anders Riisager
Catalytic transfer hydrogenation
(CTH) is a benign and effective
process for the conversion of biomass-derived platforms into fuels
and chemicals. Here, aluminum phosphate (Al/P ratio = 1.5) (APO1.5)
and alkali earth metal (AEM)-loaded APO1.5s were synthesized by impregnation
and applied in the CTH of furfural (FF) into furfuryl alcohol (FA).
The introduction of AEM created weak and medium basic sites instead
of weak acidic and strong basic sites in the pristine APO1.5, allowing
co-catalysis of the AEM oxide species (basic sites) and the APO1.5
(acidic sites) to facilitate hydrogenation instead of etherification
and acetalization. For 3 wt % Ca/APO1.5, this tuning of acidity and
basicity improved the FA yield significantly from 54 to 90% (140 °C,
48 h), and the catalyst remained stable as well as reusable for at
least four consecutive reactions with only slight deactivation. Notably,
3 wt % Ca/APO1.5 catalyst also showed high catalytic activity for
CTH of other bio-derived aldehydes, thus demonstrating its versatile
use for valorization of platforms generated during biomass refining.