Abstract
A series of gold catalysts supported on pure CeO2, ZrO2, and two different Ce-Zr mixed oxides have been prepared and tested in the 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furfural oxidation reaction. All catalysts show high catalytic activity (100% conversion) and important selectivity (27–41%) to the desired product i.e., 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid at low base concentration. Products selectivity changes with the support nature as expected, however, the observed trend cannot be related neither to gold particle size, nor to catalyst reducibility and oxygen mobility. An important relation between the FDCA selectivity and the support textural properties is observed, conducing to the general requirement for optimal pore size for this reaction.
Highlights
The oxidation of 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furfural (HMF) to 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) is widely recognized as a potential process to replace petroleum-derived chemical, terephthalic acid, with a biorefinery-derived one (Zhang and Deng, 2015)
The composition of the mixed oxides results to be very close to all targeted values, being 44.7 and 24.2 wt% CeO2 for Ce50Zr and Ce25Zr samples, respectively
A series of gold catalysts supported on metal oxides have been prepared and tested in HMF oxidation reaction
Summary
The oxidation of 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furfural (HMF) to 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) is widely recognized as a potential process to replace petroleum-derived chemical, terephthalic acid, with a biorefinery-derived one (Zhang and Deng, 2015). Recent studies have focused on the comparison of PEF and PET overall performances, revealing PEF’s superiority in terms of physical, mechanical, and thermal properties (Burgess et al, 2014) The latter has motivated the scientific community to investigate FDCA production processes, mainly based on the efficient transformation of 5hydroxymethyl-2-furfural (HMF). Interesting studies concerning mechanistic aspects have been carried out by Davis’ group (Zope et al, 2010; Davis et al, 2012) They proved, by means of labeling experiments, that gold/water interfaces in presence of oxygen participate in the formation of hydroxyl ions from dioxygen and water, being the formed ions included in the reaction. A recent study of our group (Megías-Sayago et al, 2018) reported a key role for the support surface in the rate-limiting step, of support’s Brönsted acidity and its participation in the reaction mechanism.
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