Abstract
5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF) is one of the key bio-based platform chemicals for the production of high-value chemicals and fuels. The conventional production of 5-HMF from biomass is confronted by the relatively low yield and high production cost. In this work, the enhancement of a continuous catalytic synthesis of 5-HMF in a biphasic-dispersed flow reactor was proposed. Glucose, hydrochloric acid, and methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK) were used as a low-cost raw material, catalyst, and organic solvent, respectively. The main factors (reaction temperature, residence time, solvent amount, and catalyst concentration) affecting the yield and selectivity of 5-HMF were studied. The 5-HMF yield of 81.7% and 5-HMF selectivity of 89.8% were achieved at the residence time of 3 min, reaction temperature of 180°C, the volumetric flow rate of aqueous phase to organic phase of 0.5:1, and catalyst concentration of 0.15 M. The yield and selectivity of 5-HMF obtained from the biphasic system were significantly higher than that obtained from the single phase system. The superior 5-HMF production in our system in terms of operating conditions was presented when compared to the literature data. Furthermore, the continuous process for removing HCl from the aqueous product was also proposed.
Highlights
Nowadays, the manufacturing of fuels and chemicals from non-renewable sources has raised growing environmental concerns
The experiments were performed under various reaction temperatures (150–180◦C), residence times (3–10 min), and hydrochloric acid (HCl)-to-glucose weight ratios (1:1 to 4:1)
The results show that the yield of 5-HMF increased with increasing reaction temperature
Summary
The manufacturing of fuels and chemicals from non-renewable sources has raised growing environmental concerns. This led to research and development promoting the use alternative sources of energy instead of conventional fossil-based sources. Among the biomass-based materials, 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF) nowadays has received a lot of attention due to the possibility of converting it into various high-value products such as 5-furandicarboxylic acid, 2,5-dimethyltetrahydrofuran, and 2,5-bis(hydroxymethyl)furan (Rosatella et al, 2011). Many researchers have attempted to find effective substrates for producing 5-HMF such as glucose because of the low production cost and uninterrupted supply (Hu et al, 2013). Using glucose as a substrate to produce 5-HMF normally involves
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